Letters to the president,
address changes,
subscription requests, orders for NFB literature,
articles for the Monitor, and letters to the editor
should be sent to the National Office.

Monitor subscriptions
cost theFederation about twenty-five dollars per year.
Members are invited, and non-members are requested, to cover
the subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation of the Blind and sent to:

[2
LEAD PHOTOS. PHOTO 1: Grant Mack at rear of police paddy wagon, with three
police officers. CAPTION: December 8, 1990, at
the NAC dinner in Chicago. Grant Mack, who is chairing the event,
is taken to the police station in a paddy wagon. He is shown here
accompanied by the police as he enters the paddy wagon (see
accompanying article). PHOTO 2: Picketers carrying signs outside
of the Bismark Hotel. CAPTION: Saturday, December 8, 1990, in
front of the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago. Blind people from
throughout the nation picket a NAC committee meeting (see
accompanying article).

NAC, GRANT MACK, AND A CHICAGO PADDY WAGON

by Kenneth Jernigan and
Barbara Pierce

On the evening of December 8, 1990, thirty-four people were
gathered in a third-floor meeting room at the Bismarck Hotel in
Chicago's famous Loop. The sounds of chanting and singing from
more than a hundred cheerful but grimly determined picketers
wafted up from the street below. The dinner meeting included a
number of members of the Illinois affiliate of the American
Council of the Blind (ACB), representatives from local member
agencies of the National Accreditation Council for Agencies
Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC), and a handful
of officials from two Illinois agencies that had not accepted NAC
accreditation. Also present were Oral Miller (Washington
representative of the ACB) and Grant Mack (chairman of the board
of National Industries for the Blind, past president of the
American Council of the Blind, and a long-time NAC proponent).
Before the evening was over, Mack (who was chairing the event)
would find himself taken to the police station in a paddy wagon.
In a very real sense this Chicago dinner (along with its
accompanying spectacle of violence, confrontation, and police)
was a fitting climax for NAC's twenty-five-year history of
failure and conflict, but even for NAC the proceedings were
shabby.

To understand the causes and implications
of the fiasco, one needs to know something of NAC's genesis and background.
In the
1950s the American Association of Workers for the Blind (now one
of the components of the Association for Education and
Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired) established
what it called a Seal of Good Practices for agencies doing work
with the blind. The AAWB hoped that its "Seal" would serve as a
hallmark of excellence, conferring prestige upon agencies that
received it and indicating quality performance--but it didn't
work that way. Fewer than fifty agencies ever applied for the
AAWB Seal of Good Practices, and many of those that did were
among the worst in the field. By the mid-1960s the effort was
abandoned.

However, the dream lingered, and the American Foundation for
the Blind stepped into the breach. The goal was worthy, to
establish standards and improve the quality of services provided
by agencies working with the blind--but the method was negative
and almost certain to insure failure. In the early 1960s the
American Foundation appointed what it called the Commission on
Standards and Accreditation for Agencies Serving the Blind and
Visually Handicapped (COMSTAC). Funded by the Foundation and
having a Foundation staff member as its executive, COMSTAC was
seen by many not as a new and broadly based instrument of the
blindness field but as a mere extension of the Foundation in new
clothes. COMSTAC could boast of distinguished members--
professors, deans, lawyers, officials from labor unions, and
community and business leaders; but the real control lay
elsewhere, with a handful of the more regressive spokesmen for a
few of the agencies in the blindness field. By and large,
representatives of the blind were not consulted, and such
consultation as there was tended to be of a token nature.
Moreover, it was not just the blind who were dissatisfied. Many
professionals in the field were also unhappy.

When
COMSTAC finished its work and prepared to go out of business, it appointed
its successor agency (NAC) and gave NAC
the staff member it had received from the American Foundation for
the Blind. That staff member became NAC's executive director.
(For a fuller account of NAC's beginnings see the article "NAC:
What Price Accreditation" elsewhere in this issue.)

In its early years (the late 1960s) NAC was fond of saying
that it would soon have as accredited members a majority of the
more than 500 eligible agencies in the field of work with the
blind, but this was not to be. As the 1970s came and went, NAC
was still struggling to get twenty percent of the eligible
agencies to accept its accreditation. In the sixties NAC had
stressed that its accreditation was to be voluntary. A decade
later it was angrily talking of compulsion and the linking of the
receipt of federal and state funds to accreditation. And through
it all the confrontation, belligerence, and chaos continued to
grow. In the decade of the eighties many of the larger and better
known agencies that had originally accepted NAC accreditation
dissociated themselves from the sinking ship and quietly
withdrew. To keep up the appearance of numbers, NAC replaced
these defectors with smaller and less well-known agencies so that
by the end of the decade the NAC roster had a new and even less
impressive look than in the beginning.

And then total disaster threatened. In the late 1980s the
American Foundation for the Blind, which had always provided some
fifty percent of NAC's budget, told NAC that it must either
improve its performance and streamline its procedures or lose
Foundation funding. At long last the curtain was coming down. By
1990 the timetable had been set for a total phase-out of
Foundation money. At this stage the leaders of National
Industries for the Blind attempted to come to the rescue with a
three-year program of cash bail-outs, but the trend was
definitely downward.

It seems clear that some time
during early 1990 the shrinking band of NAC die-hards panicked and decided
that
desperation measures had to be taken. The federal Rehabilitation
Act comes up for reauthorization in 1991, and NAC decided to ask
Congress to amend the Act to require that only those agencies
that are "accredited" may receive federal funds. To lobby for
this measure, the law firm employing former Rehabilitation
Commissioner Robert Humphreys was hired, presumably with money
received from the National Industries for the Blind grant. If the
NIB grant is, in fact, the source of Humphreys' fee, the payment
would likely be illegal since it is (at least, indirectly)
federal money. The desperation nature of this action is
demonstrated by the almost certain opposition and hostility which
it will receive from the Bush administration and the state
directors of rehabilitation agencies for the blind. For that
matter (see article elsewhere in this issue) even the sheltered
shops, which constitute the underpinning and constituency of
National Industries for the Blind, will oppose it.

NAC has also caused a private charitable foundation to be
created for the purpose of raising funds to replace its lost
revenue. Corporate grants and individual contributions will be
sought. In the past such efforts have been notably unsuccessful,
but apparently NAC feels that a separate corporation with a
different name might get the job done.

But this is by no means all. Obviously the panic ran deep.
NAC decided to commence an accelerated membership drive to try to
bolster its sagging finances and prestige. For this purpose it
established what it called the National Committee for the
Advancement of Accreditation, and it named Grant Mack as the
committee's chairman. As will be seen, this was not to be simply
an ordinary, garden variety membership drive but one with special
features. The plan was to go to a different state almost every
month, assemble officials from agencies that had not agreed to
accept NAC accreditation, and lay it on the line with them.

But
how was this to be done? How was NAC to explain its failure to recruit (or,
for that matter, even keep) agency
members? The answer came at the first state meeting of the
National Committee for the Advancement of Accreditation--or, as
Grant Mack and Oral Miller were to put it, the "truth squad."

On
September 20, 1990, a gathering was organized in St. Louis. Two agencies
that had not accepted NAC accreditation
attended--the state rehabilitation agency, which is on record as
being opposed to NAC accreditation, and a small agency in Kansas
City that is beginning to work with blind children. One
Federationist attended that meeting as a member of the state
agency's advisory committee, but he did not speak out or ask any
of the tough and embarrassing questions that he might have
raised. As he told the Braille Monitor, "Other people were asking
them already." The program for that evening established the
pattern that subsequent meetings would follow. NAC supporters
took the floor and said how wonderful NAC accreditation is and
how important the concept of accreditation will continue to be.
They said that anyone who opposes NAC is obviously against high
standards and quality services, which somehow doesn't seem to
follow--and they laid great stress upon the fact that it is
ridiculous to point to poor service provided by NAC-accredited
agencies and then to say that NAC accreditation has caused those
agencies to be substandard. This, of course, is putting the cart
before the horse. No one has ever said that NAC accreditation
makes an agency bad but that poor agencies tend to seek NAC
accreditation as a shield and that NAC does harm by representing
to the public that substandard is good.

But how was NAC to explain the fact that after a quarter of
a century fewer than twenty percent of the agencies in the field
had accepted its accreditation, that only ninety-eight of the
more than 500 are members, that it once had more than a hundred,
and that it has had a net loss during the last year? The answer
is as simple as it is old--find a scapegoat and divert attention.
The principal event of the evening (mainly made by Mack and
Miller) was an ill-tempered, bitter attack on the National
Federation of the Blind--giving a distorted account of the
history of the Federation's opposition to NAC and making numerous
false statements.

On November 15, 1990, what one
agency official termed "Grant
Mack's road show" went to Columbus, Ohio. This time five
unaccredited agencies were represented though one of these had
chosen to disaffiliate with NAC years ago and two others provide
special services for which NAC has no standards. This time the
NFB was invited. Four Federationists (including the president of
the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio) joined the group
for dinner and listened with astonishment to the unprovoked and
untruthful attack. When, at the end of the meeting, the NFB state
president and the other Federationists attempted to comment on
the most flagrant of the misstatements, Grant Mack repeatedly
interrupted, stridently insisting that they limit themselves to
questions or be silent. These Federationists were invited quests.
They had remained silent during the entire attack, and had only
spoken after being recognized to do so by Mack, who was chairing
the meeting. Everyone present agreed that they were polite and
restrained.

This brings us back to the December
8 meeting in Chicago. Word had spread among the blind throughout the country
of the
treatment the Federation and Federationists had received in St.
Louis and Columbus and of the bitter attacks being publicly made
by Grant Mack, calling the Federation "mindless" and saying that
its members were liars. Mack and Oral Miller had been saying that
the failure of Federationists to picket recent NAC gatherings was
a sign that the Federation had given up, that Federationists had
recognized that NAC was winning. Statements that the picketing
had been stopped to try to ease tension and in recognition of the
positive steps made in recent years by the American Foundation
for the Blind and of the growing threat to specialized services
for the blind by the pan-disability movement were greeted with
sneers and derision.

As November drew to a close, the feeling began to be
expressed across the country that the December NAC meeting in
Chicago could not be allowed to take place without the NFB's
views being registered. It took time to discover where and when
the meeting was scheduled, but by early December the word was
out--and the blind from across the nation began to rally as they
had in the days before the announcement by the American
Foundation for the Blind that it was phasing out its financial
support of NAC.

Saturday, December 8, came, and more than a hundred
Federationists from Illinois and elsewhere in the nation were on
the picket line at the Bismarck Hotel by 5:00 p.m. As usual in
such situations, the police arrived to see what was happening--
and as usual, they commended the blind picketers for their
courtesy and cooperation. The hotel entrance was not barred or
blocked, but not everyone who walked through the picket line was
courteous or even lacking in violence.

One NAC supporter
did something that no one has ever done before at a NAC demonstration. He
came down to the picket line
and began to move through it, angrily elbowing and shoving the
peaceful picketers. He swore at the marchers and taunted them,
trying to start a fight with his words and his elbows. He was
heard to say, "Federationists! Dumb asses! Go home!" When he
failed to incite anyone on the line to reciprocal violence or
rudeness, he went up to the meeting in the hotel. Several hours
later, as he was leaving, he again deliberately plowed into the
picket line. Despite the fact that the path from the hotel door
to the street was completely clear and that at least one sighted
person with him urged him not to do so, he veered to the side and
jostled the marchers, who were forced back against the people
behind them. As he completed this maneuver, he angrily said, "Get
the f--- out of my way." The man's name is Bob Jones, and he is a
long-time member of the American Council of the Blind. The blind
of the nation can be proud to report that not one person replied
in kind. The picketers simply walked around him and ignored the
disruption.

On the third floor of the hotel the mood was definitely
ugly. James Gashel, NFB Director of Governmental Affairs; Valerie
Williams, his assistant; Steve Hastalis, a sound recording
technician and member of the Chicago Chapter of the NFB; John
Halverson, who was serving as a reporter for the Braille Monitor;
and Marty Arellano, his assistant, had joined the group gathering
for dinner. Federationists had been part of the Columbus, Ohio,
meeting, and the word had been spread that Federationists were
coming to Chicago--so a Federation contingent was on hand to
record what happened on sound and video and to try to set the
record straight during the after-dinner discussion.

The
Federationists appeared promptly at 5:30, the beginning of the pre-dinner
reception. When Grant Mack arrived, Dennis
Hartenstine (executive director of NAC) was overheard telling him
that about fifteen Federationists had crashed the event. (As has
been said, five were actually in the room.) At first Mack ruled
that they could stay as long as they were courteous. This was an
easy condition to meet since the group had come with the
intention of remaining courteous whatever happened. However,
Mack's participation in the discussion that followed could hardly
be characterized by the word "courtesy." But in the end he agreed
to allow the Federationists to stay. Here is the transcript of
part of the conversation between Grant Mack and James Gashel:

Mr. Mack: This was by invitation. You said somebody came
with tickets.

Mr. Gashel: Well, Grant, you know we all have tickets.

Mr. Mack: Tickets for what?

Mr. Gashel: I have a ticket right here in my pocket.

Mr. Mack: To what?

Mr. Gashel: This event.

Mr. Mack (Becoming more agitated): We didn't sell tickets to
this event.... Well, I don't know where you got your tickets or
who paid for it, but it was not authorized, and you got a lot of
damn balls to come in here and break in on it.

Mr. Gashel: I don't think anybody...

Mr. Mack: Now, we don't mind, but I want you to understand
that you're not going to disrupt this meeting.

Mr. Gashel: Oh, we don't plan to.

Mr. Mack: All right.

Mr. Gashel: We don't plan to. That's not the purpose for
being here.

Mr. Mack: Well, the hell it isn't.

Mr. Gashel: No it isn't, but I don't think you should say
the things you did in Columbus or in St. Louis.

Mr. Mack: Well, we'll say the same things.

Mr. Gashel: And you will not be allowed to do that. You
don't have to behave that way.

Mr. Mack: Well, we're going to say the truth.

Mr. Gashel: The truth doesn't include the things you said.
You certainly have a right to promote anything you want to, but
you don't have a right to bash us.

Mr. Mack: Nobody deserves it more, but this is like a
private home, you see.

Mr. Gashel: Well, that's fine; it looked like a public
meeting to us.

Mr. Mack: Well, it was not a public meeting; no one offered
to sell you tickets.

Mr. Gashel: No, they gave me a ticket.

Mr. Mack: Who did?

Mr. Gashel: I don't know who gave it to me, to tell you the
truth, but it was given to me. I assumed it came from the
Illinois people.

Mr. Mack: Well, that is not right; we did not issue any
tickets.

Mr. Gashel: Well, it looks to me like the Illinois people
are a lot more cooperative than you are.

Mr. Mack: I'm plenty cooperative; I just think that the
brashness of you...

Mr. Gashel: Nobody's going to disrupt your meeting.

Mr. Mack: Well, you're right about that. I just want you to
understand that. I got no problem with you being here, not at
all.

Mr. Gashel: I'd just like to have dinner with you.

Mr. Mack: Yes, I understand; you've come all the way from
Baltimore just to have dinner.

Mr. Gashel: Absolutely....

Mr. Mack: You play it cool, baby.

Mr. Gashel: You too.

There you have the exchange between Grant Mack and
James Gashel; and, if it cannot be characterized as cordial, it
certainly leaves the reader (and, in fact, left Mr. Gashel) with
the impression that the evening's host was resigned, at least, to
having NFB observers in the meeting. Before dinner was served,
however, Grant Mack seems to have lost his cool.

John Halverson, one of the leaders of the Missouri
affiliate, was serving as a reporter for the Braille Monitor. In
addition to observing the discussion, he was directing the work
of a video cameraman, who was setting up his equipment during the
reception. Dennis Hartenstine talked with Mack, and Mack hurried
over to Halverson. This is what happened next, as John Halverson
recalled it later for the Braille Monitor:

I said that I was a reporter for the Braille Monitor and
planned to video the speeches. Both Mack and Hartenstine said
there would be no taping in this meeting. Mack asked who had
invited me to the meeting. I replied, "I am a member of the press
and want to report on the NAC meeting. I also have a ticket for
the dinner." Mack said that this was a private meeting and there
would be no taping. At that point someone called for hotel
security. Mack continued speaking and getting more angry. He
repeated that it was a private meeting and that I was not
invited. He said there were several uninvited guests in the room
and they would have to leave. I told Mack that I was a member of
the press in a public hotel covering a meeting which would be
discussing federal funds for agencies serving the blind. I
continued, "You are talking about the lives of blind persons; and
I, as a reporter, have a right to be present."

At about this time a member of hotel security arrived. Mack
said that, if I was not out of the room in five minutes, he would
have the hotel call the police and they would bring the wagon and
take me away. The hotel security guard agreed. Again, I stated
that I was a member of the press and wanted to cover the meeting
because it would deal with the lives of blind persons....

At
about this time Mack became more belligerent. While speaking with me, he
kept moving in closer, causing his dog guide
to brush against my leg. At one time he said, "The Braille
Monitor is a yellow journal." He said, "You are all liars," and
he added that I was a liar.

I asked, "How
do you know that I am a liar? You don't know
me."

Mack repeated, "You are all liars.
I know about you; I know
you have a reputation for being a liar."

There you have the exchange between Grant Mack and John
Halverson as Dr. Halverson reported it, and even though Mack got
his way and the Monitor reporter was nonconfrontive (or maybe
because of these facts), something in Grant Mack seemed to snap
at this point. The next thing people noticed was that Mack was
announcing in a loud and angry voice that all Federationists
would have to leave the room or be arrested. Then he supervised
as hotel security escorted the Federationists from the room, one
by one. However, they were not leaving quickly enough for Grant
Mack. According to witnesses, he sought them out individually,
shouting and swearing at them to leave.

When he
reached Steve Hastalis, he found him talking in a group composed of the superintendent
of the Illinois school for
the blind; the director of the state vocational rehabilitation
agency; and Catherine Randall, first vice president of the NFB of
Illinois, who was present as an advisory board member from the
agency. Mack grabbed Hastalis's arm and, twisting it, spun
Hastalis around to face him. According to several witnesses, Mack
then shouted at him to "Get the hell out of here with that
thing."

According to Hastalis, this was the first he had heard of
any instruction to leave. He had been talking peacefully with
friends and acquaintances, and he was suddenly spun around and
shouted at. All he could think of was the need to stay on his
feet. As a big city resident, he has been the object of several
street muggings, and he knew that the violence directed at him by
word and action could be dangerous if he were to be thrown to the
ground in a vulnerable position. He says that he also knew that
it was important for him to suppress his natural impulse to
protect himself by fighting back as he has successfully done
against muggers. He says that he was determined to be courteous
and peaceful, so he concentrated his energy on keeping his temper
and staying on his feet--an effort which, along with the force
and torque of Mack's grasp on his arm, caused him to drop several
pieces of the valuable equipment he was carrying. His microphone
stand was broken and the microphone was damaged when Mack grabbed
it and ripped it away from the battery pack.

Hastalis says that the school superintendent, Richard
Umsted, later sought him out and apologized to him for what had
happened. One of the members of the board of an agency that has
not agreed to accept NAC-accreditation agency later commented to
Catherine Randall that he had seen the whole thing and that it
looked pretty violent to him. According to Randall the director
of the vocational rehabilitation agency later told his table
mates that the Federationists should not have been thrown out.

[PHOTO: NFB members gathered in meeting room at Bismarck hotel.
CAPTION: Blind picketers have left the line in front of the hotel
to hear a report from Marc Maurer concerning the physical attack
made on Steve Hastalis by Grant Mack.]

Those who had been ejected from the NAC meeting then made a
report to the full group of blind people, who came in from the
picket line to hear what had happened. Everyone then took a
break, returning to the picket line at about 8:15. In the
meantime, Steve Hastalis had obviously been searching his soul.
He was deeply shaken by the violence of Mack's rage. Hastalis is
a quiet, gentle man. He goes about his business, earns his
living, and believes in blind people. He came to the conclusion
that the violence he had experienced at the hands of Grant Mack
was wrong, so he called the police.

When they arrived, Grant Mack was chairing the meeting. He
was summoned from the room and escorted by five of Chicago's
police from the hotel. He was put into a paddy wagon and taken to
the police station. Steve Hastalis and Peggy Pinder, who is an
attorney in private practice, followed him in a squad car. They
found that Oral Miller had already arrived, and the conclusion of
the discussions that followed was that the police, unsure of
their ground, decided not to act that evening. The whole matter
was referred for further investigation.

Mack and Miller returned to the third-floor meeting at the
Bismarck, and at the close of it Mack had one more distasteful
encounter with a member of the Federation. Francesca Bacon, a
member of the NFB staff and an active member of the Baltimore
chapter, had spent the evening taking pictures of the picket line
and the activities on the third floor. Here is an excerpt from
her written account:

At 10:30 p.m. Mr. Mack and Mr. Hartenstine were leaving the
meeting together, along with Matthew (Mack's dog guide), and I
was taking the opportunity to get some pictures. Mr. Mack said, "Do you want me to autograph those pictures for you, Honey?" His
tone was sarcastic.

I said, "Well, I suppose
we could arrange to send you a copy or two of these pictures for you to autograph
if that's what you
want. And, by the way, my name is Miss Bacon, not Honey."

Mr.
Mack's response was, "Well, Honey, you sound really hard
up."

I said, "I am not your honey, and
I am not hard up."

On Monday morning, December 10, 1990, a complaint was filed
against Mack, and a hearing was set for early January. A summons
was delivered to Grant Mack at his home in Salt Lake City, Utah,
and there the matter stands at the time of this writing, (late
December).

It is not certain at this time whether a peaceful resolution
to this matter can be found. This is not the time when elements
in the blindness field should be locked in an internal struggle.
We are facing perhaps the most dangerous threat that has ever
beset us--the juggernaut of the generic disability programs that
would engulf us and submerge the needs of the blind in the larger
(and, for the most part, very different) needs of the pan-
disability movement. In recent years the major organizations in
the blindness field have made very real strides in building new
understandings and agreeing upon joint action. At this moment of
genuine internal promise and profound external danger, NAC and
its supporters have gathered themselves for one last effort to
shatter the progress that has been made.

There are a growing number of professionals in the blindness
field who have taken part in NAC's agency self-studies or on-site
reviews who will say in private that both these exercises are
frequently a bad joke played on staff and clients alike. When the
blind protest that the accrediting body must bear some
responsibility for poor agency service among its members, NAC
replies that it is innocent. Surely there would be a public
outcry against a city health department that licensed a
restaurant that had repeated outbreaks of food poisoning. The
city could argue that it had not given anyone food poisoning,
that clean restaurants were also licensed, and that poor
management might benefit from having health officials come from
time to time to discuss the health code with them. But the
victims of the food poisoning, their families and friends, and
even those healthy people who might wander in to the restaurant
occasionally would all resent the city's attitude and demand
accountability. That is what the blind demand of NAC today--
accountability.

Be all of that as it may, the greatest enemy of NAC is NAC
itself. On December 8, 1990, at the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago NAC
probably provoked the trigger event which will finally cause its
long overdue demise--and the blind of the nation, as well as most
of the professionals in the field, will rejoice. The rejoicing
will occur not because of NAC's failure but because of the harm
which it has done to the blind and the agencies in the field.
Surely it is time to put this unfortunate and unsuccessful
episode behind us and to move on to a better day of harmony and
cooperation. Let the dead be dead.

From the Editor: As has been reported elsewhere in this
issue of the Monitor, Grant Mack was taken to the Chicago police
station in a paddy wagon on December 8, 1990. A few days after
this incident, Mack circulated a document purporting to give the
facts. We think it may be instructive to Monitor readers to know
what he said, so we are printing the entire text of his paper.
When conflicting claims are made, it is sometimes difficult to
judge their accuracy. However, in the Grant Mack document we have
a rare opportunity. It contains statements which are provably not
true and which are refuted by the internal evidence of the
document itself. This permits us to judge other statements by Mr.
Mack when proof is not available one way or another.

All
who were present at the Bismarck Hotel on December 8 agree that not more
than thirty-five people were present at the
dinner. All agree that Catherine Randall, First Vice President of
the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois, was one of
those present by invitation. In his paper Mack says: "All thirty-
five people present offered to be a witness to the situation." We
have talked with Catherine Randall, and she says that she made no
such offer. If one argues that Mr. Mack was simply careless with
his facts, it makes the point. Moreover, Steve Hastalis, who was
the victim of Mack's attack, says that Richard Umsted
(superintendent of the state school for the blind in Illinois)
apologized to him for Mack's behavior. Others who were in the
room expressed shock and surprise. Based on the evidence
presented in the Mack paper and elsewhere in this issue of the Monitor, where does it seem that the truth lies?

There is more. In his paper Mack says "I discovered the room
had at least 10 NFB people equipped with video cameras and
microphones." There were only five NFB representatives in the
room, and we have named them elsewhere in this issue of the Monitor. Perhaps Mr. Mack could tell us who the other five were.
Moreover, there was one video camera and one tape recorder.
Certainly all of these ten Federationists in the room were not
equipped with video cameras and tape recorders. Again, would Mr.
Mack like to prove to the contrary?

By Mr. Mack's own statement he committed a battery,
which is
a criminal act. His own words are: "I reached out, grabbed the
microphone, tore it up, and threw it down." Of course, one could
draw the clever distinction that Mr. Mack did not physically
attack Steve Hastalis but only Hastalis's microphone, carefully
avoiding any contact with Hastalis himself--but naivet ends
somewhere. Mack tries to explain his rowdyism by saying that when
he arrived at the dinner he and others who were blind did not
know of the multitude of video cameras and microphones that were
present. Is this believable?

Members of the National Federation of the Blind have been
attending NAC meetings for almost twenty years, and in each and
every instance tape recorders have been brought. Mr. Mack has
attended these meetings. Therefore, he knew (or had every reason
to know) that recorders would be present. Additionally, he had
already ejected John Halverson from the room and had discussed
with Halverson the fact that Halverson had a video camera and
that recording was being done. No, it won't wash, and Mr. Mack's
contrived explanation does not alter the fact that a battery was
committed.

The explanation which
Mr. Mack gives as to why he was taken to the police station is laughable
and transparently at
variance
with reality. "We were escorted to the elevator," he says, "down
to the ground floor, and into a paddy wagon. Strangely, the
entire distance from the meeting room to the paddy wagon was
lined with `blind' NFBers with cameras, an obvious set-up." Is it
really "strange" that the hall was lined with people and cameras?
After all, the Federation representatives were there to
demonstrate, and they knew that charges had been filed. It would
have been "strange" if there had not been a large crowd on hand
to witness the spectacle.

And what
about the charge that the trip to the police
station was "an obvious set-up?" How could it have been a set-up
since no one knew in advance that Mr. Mack would lose his cool
and physically attack Steve Hastalis, breaking a microphone and
throwing it to the floor? No, again it won't do.

The microphone worked long enough to record Mr. Mack's foul
language and swearing, his belligerence and real behavior. He
lost his cool and probably gave the final death blow to NAC in
the process. But let Mr. Mack's own words (words which he cannot
now take back or deny) convict him. Here is the paper he
circulated:

On Saturday, December 8, 1990, an NCAA (National Committee
for the Advancement of Accreditation) committee-sponsored dinner
was scheduled for the Bismarck Hotel in downtown Chicago.
Preparations for the meeting had begun some three to four weeks
prior to December 8. With the help of Joyce Russell, President,
Illinois Council of the Blind, several responsible consumers as
well as a number of agency directors (of both accredited and non-
accredited agencies) had been issued invitations to attend this
dinner meeting. Thirty-five people confirmed their intention to
attend. Those who were asked to make presentations at the meeting
were: Dr. Toni Heinze, Immediate Past President of AER and
professor at Northern Illinois University; Dennis Hartenstine,
Executive Director, National Accreditation Council for Agencies
Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped; Oral Miller, National
Representative of the American Council of the Blind; Bob
Esposito, American Foundation for the Blind representative in
Washington, D.C.; Milton Samuelson, Executive Director of the
Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind; and Dr. Richard Umsted,
Superintendent of the School for the Blind in Jacksonville,
Illinois.

A week or so before the actual meeting, rumors started to
surface to the effect that the National Federation of the Blind
(NFB) was going to picket the meeting in full force. What
triggered this reaction on the part of NFB? Two similar meetings
had been held in Missouri and Ohio respectively in October and
November. NFB people were present at both meetings by invitation.
Did the word reach NFB headquarters to the effect that these
meetings had been successful in generating interest in
accreditation; that the myths being promulgated about
accreditation, what it is and isn't, was finally reaching
responsible people; or was it a speech I made at the NAC Biennial
meeting in Washington on November 18, in which I reported the
success of these meetings and our intention to continue them?

At any rate, upon arrival in Chicago early on Saturday
morning, it became very evident that NFB was in fact planning a
major demonstration. On checking with hotel staff, I learned that
the NFB people had come in the day before, found out where our
dinner meeting was being held, and then immediately reserved
rooms next to ours, obviously with the intention of disrupting
our meeting. When informed about the potential problem, the hotel
people were very cooperative in moving our meeting room to the
opposite end of the third floor which would assure privacy. We
also alerted the hotel to the fact that it was very possible that
some trouble could develop and we insisted that they have plenty
of security people on hand to handle any incidents.

The dinner was to be served promptly at 6:30 p.m. preceded
by a hospitality gathering of thirty to forty minutes prior to
that time. Upon reaching the room at approximately 5:45 p.m., I
discovered the room had at least 10 NFB people equipped with
video cameras and microphones. Those of us who are totally blind
were, of course, not aware that the cameras and recorders were in
place for some minutes after our arrival. James Gashel appeared
to be their leader. He was told that they were not invited and
were asked to leave. Their pretended innocence at being excluded
from a meeting involving blind people should have tipped us off
that it was a staged provocation. It was about at that point I
learned the cameras and recorders were in place. After much
jostling and patient cajoling, the hotel security people finally
were able to remove most of them, but only after threatening to
call the police. Mr. Milt Samuelson, Executive Director of the
Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, told me that one person was
left with a microphone, and that he was holding the mike right in
front of me. I reached out, grabbed the microphone, tore it up,
and threw it down. Security then cleared the room and we
proceeded with our meeting.

At around 8:15 - 8:30
p.m., when the meeting was reaching the point where all the presentations
had been made and we were
getting to the "question and answer" period, I was informed by a
person near the door that a Chicago policeman wanted to talk with
me outside. I left my guide dog under the table and accompanied
the lady to the door where I was informed by a sergeant from the
Chicago Police Department that a complaint had been filed against
me for battery, and he requested that I come with him for
questioning. I suggested the meeting was nearly over and if he
would wait, I would accompany him. He said he was sorry but I
must come now. Someone retrieved my dog for me and informed Oral
Miller of what was happening, so, when Matthew and Oral Miller
appeared in the entrance, we all left.

We were escorted
to the elevator, down to the ground floor, and into a paddy wagon. Strangely,
the entire distance from the
meeting room to the paddy wagon was lined with "blind" NFBers
with cameras, an obvious set-up. Oral Miller was put in a police
car and we were taken to the Downtown Loop police station.

After
being ushered to an inner room, the sergeant left and returned with the captain.
Responding to the captain's query on
exactly what happened, I repeated the story as outlined above. He
disappeared, returned shortly, and then apologized for the
inconvenience. He said he had lectured Steven Hastalis, the
complainant, on the right to privacy and the laws of
eavesdropping with electronic devices, and he suggested that
there should be no more trouble from him. As the sergeant
escorted Oral Miller and me back to the paddy wagon for the
return trip to the hotel, he said, "Had I been in the same
situation, I would have found it difficult to keep from hitting
the guy."

Oral Miller and I returned to the hotel and were surprised
to find the meeting still in session. The meeting concluded and
many people apologized for the inconvenience experienced in
Chicago. I told them it was not their fault. It was not Chicago
people or Illinois people who caused it, but outsiders. All
thirty-five people present offered to be a witness to the
situation.

This unbelievable incident has been reported as correctly as
I can remember it. It is incredible to me that someone who
proports (sic) to be interested in the welfare of blind people
can continue to waste time, means, and effort in a mindless
vendetta against an organization which many years ago he found
that he could not control.

NIB, NAC, AND TANSTAAFL

by Peggy Pinder

Robert Heinlein, the science fiction writer, is remembered
and read fondly by millions all over the world. To my mind, he
has four outstanding strengths: First, he locates crucial action
in two of his books in Grinnell, Iowa. Second, all but one of his
books include cats as characters, the exception being one in
which the principal action takes place on the moon. Third, he
wrote The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, an achievement which, by
itself, would crown any life's accomplishments. And, fourth, he
formulated and disseminated the important concept of
Tanstaafl--"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

The National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the
Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) has thought for a long time
that it is above the rules of the game, including the one about
free lunches. Its very existence has been a free lunch. NAC has
never been a going concern. It has never made enough money
through fees to cover its expenses for the service it offers.
Every year it has made the rounds of various benefactors, such as
the American Foundation for the Blind, trumpeting the value of
its services and asking for money to make budgetary ends meet.
And every year, someone has come up with the cash. For each of
its twenty-four years, NAC has run a deficit and has been saved
by others from the usual consequences of such behavior. No
wonder NAC believes there is a free lunch; it has been on a
twenty-four-year binge, eating on somebody else's tab.

The
American Council of the Blind, an organization with a well-deserved reputation
of its own for sitting down at other
people's tables whenever and wherever the board has been spread,
has steadily (if ineffectually) raised its voice in support of
NAC. In the November, 1982, Braille Forum (the ACB's publication)
Grant Mack, the then president of the ACB, wrote, "Let it be
noted from now on the ACB will use all its power to encourage
every agency to seek accreditation. Those agencies that have
turned their backs on accreditation in the past will no longer do
so with impunity. This is not a threat, but merely a statement of
fact, because the American Council of the Blind plans to use
every method at its disposal to make certain that every agency
serving the blind is accredited."

So said the ACB's president in 1982, and through the years
the ACB members of the NAC cheering section have remained
faithful and vociferous despite the continuing refusal of the
vast majority of agencies in the field to ally themselves with
NAC and despite the increasing tide of accredited agencies
divesting themselves of their NAC seals.

In 1986,
when some of its traditional benefactors began to show weariness at NAC's
yearly raid on their balance sheets, NAC
started down a new avenue for meeting its expenses. National
Industries for the Blind (NIB), the agency that actually hands
out federal contracts to sheltered workshops under the
Javits-Wagner-O'Day program, announced to all workshops that they
could be accredited by NAC at no cost to themselves. NIB would
pay the tab. This new effort to cover NAC's annual deficits would
result in two free lunches: NAC would get fees from more
accredited agencies, and workshops would get accreditation
without having to pay for it. That is the attractive offer that
NIB made to NAC and the workshops. Those involved in the planning
undoubtedly expected this to create a situation in which everyone
would be happy, and the Heinlein principle of tanstaafl ("There
ain't no such thing as a free lunch") would be proved wrong
forever.

There was only one fly in this ointment. The workshops
didn't care for the offer. Apparently they had read Heinlein, and
they knew all about the real cost of a free lunch. They stayed
away in droves from the offer of free NAC accreditation.

Late in 1989 NIB added dessert to the free lunch it proposed
to serve to NAC. Not only would NIB pay for any workshop that
wanted accreditation, but NIB itself would also give NAC $300,000
over the next three years, $125,000 the first year. Shortly
before this generous offer was made, NIB announced that it was
increasing the commission that workshops must pay to it. Though
the law gives workshops for the blind a priority in the letting
of federal contracts, NIB got in the way years ago and convinced
everybody that it should be the middle man between government and
workshop, taking a cut of every contract as the money passed by.
NIB announced a hike in this commission rate; and, although it
stoutly maintained that other expenses had driven up the
commission rate, everyone understood that the real explanation
was the need to pay for its generous gift to NAC. (Well, of
course, as you can see, NIB wasn't exactly doing the giving. It
was to come from the workshops--but the workshops don't count. So
NIB was doing the giving.) The cost of the free lunch began to be
revealed.

This hike in the commission rate brought forth a storm of
protest. Workshops use the proceeds from contracts to pay the
salaries of managers and the wages of workers and to buy raw
materials for the next contract. NIB's extra bite out of the
contract proceeds meant less for everybody in the workshops. So
feeling the pinch, the managers and workers found themselves for
once in the same camp, resisting NAC.

NIB has heard a proverb or two in its time, so it tried to
lure the fly out of the ointment by using a little honey. But
the only honey it could come up with turned out to be the renewal
of its old promise to pay every cent of accreditation costs for
each sheltered workshop in the country. But the workshops were
still not biting. They knew about two chickens in every pot, pie
in the sky, and free lunches--and they had also had a look at the
check. The cost was coming out of commissions (the commissions
paid by the workshops to NIB), and it was too high.

All of this serves as prelude to the banquet served up at
the fall meeting of the General Council of Workshops for the
Blind, held from October 21 to 24, 1990, in New Orleans. At these
gatherings workshop managers congregate; NIB comes; and meetings
of all sorts occur. These include regional gatherings of the
General Council, as well as full meetings of all workshop
representatives and a meeting of the NIB board of directors. On
Sunday, October 21, 1990, the workshop representatives met by
region over breakfast. Each region considered topics of interest
to its members, including any issues of national scope that
regional members chose to bring up. Knowing the process and
having plans of their own, the friendly folks at NIB and NAC had
decided to seek workshop and NIB board approval of a resolution
which would recommend that the federal Rehabilitation Act be
amended to require accreditation before any federal
rehabilitation money could be received. Many workshops, of
course, receive federal rehabilitation money in addition to their
federal contract priority sales. Here is the text of the
resolution as it was circulated:

WHEREAS, accreditation of education, human, and social
service programs for people with disabilities is essential to
ensure quality services and program accountability; and

WHEREAS, both taxpayers and beneficiaries of services
increasingly are demanding assurance of quality of programs
funded by federal tax dollars; and

WHEREAS, authorities under the Rehabilitation Act expire
September 30, 1991 and the Act will be amended and extended by
Congress next year; and

WHEREAS, programs under the Rehabilitation Act would benefit
by linking federal funding to accreditation;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Industries
for the Blind supports and endorses amendments to the
Rehabilitation Act to require accreditation as a condition for
federal funding for programs authorized under such legislation;

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution
shall be provided to the Secretary of Education and appropriate
subsidiary officials of the Department of Education, and to the
Congress.

--------------------

There it is, and one can see why a number of workshop
managers were less than enthusiastic when they read it and
thought about the implications. Richard Brueckner, President of
Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, was one who put his
thoughts on paper in a letter to a member of Region I of the
General Council. Although he was not planning to attend the fall
meeting, he wanted to be certain that his views were heard and
understood. Here is what he had to say:

Please be advised that Blind Industries and Services of
Maryland is absolutely and unequivocally opposed to the proposed
resolution in support of accreditation to be presented to the NIB
Board of Directors on Sunday, October 21, 1990.

This organization cannot support the idea of accreditation
without an impartial consideration of the accrediting authority
which confirms its legitimacy, its ability to make sound
decisions, and its ability to apply fair standards.

This organization can in no way support the activities of
NAC, which currently pretends to provide accreditation to
organizations such as ours.

We strongly urge the NIB Board of Directors not to adopt
this resolution.

The topic of the resolution was raised at all four regional
meetings over breakfast. The results were like this:

Region IV, basically the Far West and Southwest, discussed
the resolution and then tabled any further action on it. Regions
II and III, the country's midsection, heard mention of the
resolution from the podium and didn't even bother to discuss it.
Region I, the Eastern Seaboard, discussed the proposed resolution
with vigor. After vehement expressions of opinion from many, the
Eastern Seaboard region voted unanimously and resoundingly to
reject the resolution. Not a single region supported it, and
attitudes ranged from unwillingness to discuss the issue to
strenuous opposition.

NIB's board met later that day. In the chair was Grant Mack,
bringing to NIB all of the skill he showed in shepherding the
American Council of the Blind to virtual financial and other ruin
when he was president of that organization. Mack had the
constant, personal support and assistance of Dennis Hartenstine,
executive director of NAC, who was much in evidence this day,
offering to talk to anyone who would listen. The discussion at
the NIB board meeting began with Mack's opening the subject in a
tone of sweet reason, as if the topic were one on which all
people of good will would agree. But the proceeding quickly
progressed to stormy debate and ended with the NIB board tabling
the resolution. One observer stated that the NAC opponents began
as a minority; but as the depth and strength of the opposition to
NAC became evident, they gained a majority of the votes and
tabled the matter. Another observer (a strong supporter of NAC)
was heard to comment that the tabling of the motion was the only
way out of a bad situation for Mack and NAC. The pro-NAC forces
did not realize the strength and depth of opposition to NAC and
fought a rearguard action to avoid having the resolution actually
defeated by pleading that it be tabled while the re-authorization
of the Rehabilitation Act was under discussion. Then, says our
NAC supporter, after NAC accreditation is completely ignored in
the 1991 Rehabilitation Act re-authorization, the issue will be
allowed to pass away quietly into the night.

According to several reports, Grant Mack was beside himself
over his failure to contrive board passage of the pro-NAC
resolution. Mack, of course, would not have characterized his
defeat in such terms, maintaining fiercely that the resolution
was written to support the concepts of accreditation and quality
standards in general and that NAC--the only major accrediting
body in the blindness field as Mack would put it--was just an
incidental beneficiary. But whichever way one describes the
resolution, the obvious fact remains that NIB's attempt to go on
record as supporting incorporation of an accreditation
prerequisite in the Rehabilitation Act amendments has failed. By
the time the matter can be raised again at an NIB Board meeting
in the spring, the amendment recommendations will pretty much
have been agreed upon. Everyone in the NIB Board meeting with any
political sense understood this timetable and took part in the
discussion in full recognition of it.

With this fact in mind, it is interesting to note the way in
which Grant Mack described the NIB Board's action (or lack of
action) when he was asked directly about it in a public meeting
on November 15, 1990, in Columbus, Ohio. He told Barbara Pierce,
President of the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio, that
several members of the NIB board seemed, as he put it, unable to
understand the true intent of the resolution. They apparently
thought, he said, that federal contracts with the workshops might
soon be predicated on NAC accreditation. According to Mack, it
was clear to proponents of the resolution that no matter how
simply and clearly (in fact, no matter how earnestly) they stated
the purity and innocence of their intentions, there were going to
be a couple of votes against the resolution. Mack said with a
perfectly straight face that the proponents felt that it was
important to have a unanimous vote in support of the resolution,
so the decision was made to table it until it could be explained
to those who couldn't understand. In that way a unanimous vote
could be secured the next time around.

It will be
remembered that Grant Mack said in 1982 that the
ACB would "use all its power to encourage every agency to seek
accreditation" and that "those agencies which have turned their
back on accreditation will no longer do so with impunity." It
would seem that the ACB's power now extends to the rewriting of
history (at least, when in Columbus, Ohio) and to ignoring
obvious facts about the financial stability of NAC. Surely
everyone would have to agree that NAC's survival is currently
dependent on NIB's financial support and further that NIB's
continued financial support depends, in turn, on widespread
acceptance of NAC by the workshop managers. That acceptance is
now at an all-time low and likely to sink still lower.

NAC has now become hooked on the free lunch. It seems to
have concluded that, for it to exist, agencies throughout the
country will have to be compelled to accredit. Voluntary
association is not enough. With this part of NAC's analysis we
heartily agree. Almost nobody outside the original network of NAC
creators supports NAC these days. Agencies have to watch their
pennies, explain their expenditures, and justify sending tens of
thousands of dollars out of state to a New York entity from which
they can demonstrate no corresponding benefit. Agencies must also
deal with the reality that blind consumers are offended and
insulted by NAC and that NAC accreditation poisons efforts to
develop strong partnerships with local members of the blind
community. We, the blind, have seen too much poor service and
life-endangering action by agencies accredited by NAC to permit
the farce to continue. We decided long ago that we, the blind,
would speak for ourselves. More and more agencies are listening.

A final interesting note to this most recent effort by NAC
to cadge another free lunch. One of NAC's earliest and strongest
supporters is Carl Augusto, now head of the Cincinnati
Association for the Blind, including its famous (or perhaps
infamous) workshop. Augusto hopes that his decades of agreeing
with NAC and its old boy network will land him some day at the
head table. It is common knowledge that he is aiming at the
executive directorship of the American Foundation for the Blind.
He is also aiming for a very special place by a set of wily
tactics he hopes will gain him applause from the NAC crowd. The
Cincinnati Association is now a union shop, which gets work from
NIB. Augusto is reportedly toying with the idea of transforming
his workshop from one employing only the blind to one employing a
broader group of the severely handicapped. The blind have
collective bargaining; the severely handicapped do not. Augusto,
like Frank Lorenzo before him, hopes to step to greatness over a
broken union. We would merely note that it didn't work for
Lorenzo, and there is no reason to expect that Augusto will fare
any better.

As for NAC, it is clear that its time is running out. After
alternately bullying and flattering the workshops with threats
and promises of accreditation, it has apparently worn out its
welcome. In place of the elusive free lunch, we commend to NAC
that other pastime conducted at tables, the poker game--and
particularly the song about it made famous by Kenny Rogers:

You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know
when to walk away, know when to run.

The time has come for NAC to run. Tanstaafl. There ain't no
such thing as a free lunch. Sooner or later, one pays--and NAC's
bill has come due.

NAC: WHAT PRICE ACCREDITATION

A Report to National Federation
of the Blind Members
on COMSTAC and NAC
by Kenneth Jernigan, President
National Federation of the Blind

From the Editor: I delivered this address at the 1971
convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Houston.
NAC's president and executive director had come to discuss what
NAC was doing and why. My remarks were meant to set the tone for
the debate. In the context of NAC's current maneuvering I think
this 1971 analysis is still pertinent. Here it is:

When the Commission on Standards and Accreditation on
Services for the Blind (COMSTAC) and its successor organization,
the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind
and Visually Impaired (NAC), came into being during the 1960s,
the leaders of the organized blind movement sounded the alarm. It
was pointed out that the American Association of Workers for the
Blind had unsuccessfully tried, during the 1950s, to gain control
of the field of work for the blind by instituting what it called
a "seal of good practices." Of the several hundred agencies and
organizations in this country doing work with the blind only
twenty or thirty ever applied for and received this "seal."
Several of those which did were not regarded by the blind as
either very effective or very progressive. As the decade of the
'60s approached, the proponents of rigid agency control
apparently decided to change tactics. The American Foundation for
the Blind and certain other leading agency officials adopted the
idea of establishing a so-called "independent" accrediting system
for all groups doing work with the blind. Although individual
blind persons who were agency officials were involved in the
establishment and development of COMSTAC, the blind as a group
were not consulted--that is, the representative organizations of
the blind were not given a voice, except occasionally as a matter
of tokenism. Thus, the consumers of the services were not heard
in any meaningful way, and they had no part in developing or
promulgating the standards to govern the agencies established to
give them assistance.

Profiting by the earlier failure
of the AAWB "seal of good
practices" experiment, the authors of COMSTAC built more
carefully. The American Foundation for the Blind appointed an
"independent" commission--the Commission on Standards and
Accreditation for Services for the Blind (COMSTAC). The full-time
staff consultant for COMSTAC was a staff member of the AFB, on
loan to the group, purely as a means of demonstrating the
Foundation's concern with the improvement of services for the
blind. To add respectability, people of prestige outside of the
field of work with the blind were placed on the commission--
public officials, business executives, the dean of the Temple Law
School, etc. These were people of good will and integrity, but
they were not knowledgeable concerning the problems of blindness.
Obviously they took their tone and orientation from the
Foundation appointees on COMSTAC. All of these appointees, it
must be borne in mind, were high-ranking officials doing work
with the blind. Not one of them represented the blind themselves.
Not one of them came from a membership organization of blind
persons.

As its work developed, COMSTAC divided into subcommittees,
involving hundreds of people throughout the country, since the
subcommittees further subdivided into smaller groups. Again, the
pattern was followed. The subcommittees, or the subcommittees of
the subcommittees, had, in every instance, at least one of the
COMSTAC agency officials as a member, plus people of prestige and
ordinary rank and file agency workers or board members. In fact,
at the sub-subcommittee level a few members of the organized
blind movement were even added.

The American Foundation for the Blind and COMSTAC were later
to proclaim with pride that they had sought and achieved a broad
consensus throughout the field of work with the blind. However,
the method of arriving at that consensus was, to say the least,
novel. At Denver in the summer of 1965, for instance, the AAWB
convention was largely taken up with a discussion of the COMSTAC
standards--to gather opinions and achieve consensus, it was said.
Only the discussion leaders had copies of the standards (there
had been a delay in mimeographing), and any touchy point which
was raised was answered either by the statement that it was
covered somewhere else in the COMSTAC standards or that another
group was discussing that matter and it was not properly the
concern of the group in which it had been raised.

Home teachers from throughout the country were present and
were considering the standards affecting their specialty. The
overwhelming majority apparently disagreed with a particular item
in the COMSTAC document and suggested that a vote be taken to
determine the sentiments of the group. They were informed by the
discussion leader that a vote certainly would not be taken but
that their views would be reported to COMSTAC, which had the sole
responsibility for deciding such matters.

Throughout the summer and fall of 1965 promises were
repeatedly made that copies of the proposed COMSTAC standards
would be made available. They were forthcoming, hundreds of pages
of them--three days prior to the final conference in New York
City, which brought together hundreds of agency representatives
for the announced purpose of arriving at a final consensus. Dr.
Jacobus tenBroek and I attended that conference. Again, the
democracy and fair play with which it was conducted were novel.
One had to indicate in writing ahead of time which particular
group discussion he would like to attend. There was no assurance
that his choice would be honored. He might be assigned to another
group. He could not move from group to group at all. If he had
not received a special invitation, he could not attend the
meetings. COMSTAC appointees were stationed at the door to check
credentials, and I personally witnessed the turning away of one
agency director who had been critical of COMSTAC.

It is no wonder that the blind people of the country felt
apprehensive. What type of standards were likely to emerge from a
commission so appointed and so conducted? Not only the blind but
also many of the agencies expressed concern. Many felt that the
AFB and federal rehabilitation officials (unwittingly aided by
people of prestige in the broader community) would impose a
system of rigid controls--which would stifle initiative, foster
domination, and take the emphasis off of real service and place
it on bureaucracy, red tape, and professional jargon. It was
further felt that what purported to begin as a voluntary system
would (once firmly established) become mandatory. The AFB and
other proponents of COMSTAC and its successor organization, NAC,
vigorously denied these assertions. COMSTAC and NAC were to be
truly independent. Their very watchword was to be objectivity.
They were to be the means of improving services to blind people
throughout the country and the vehicle for progressive thought
and constructive change.

Readers of the Braille Monitor will remember that from 1965
through 1968 a detailed analysis was made of the COMSTAC and NAC
reports and activities. The fact that the Federation has not
called attention in recent months to COMSTAC and NAC should not
lead the blind to believe that the threat has passed or the
situation improved. Quite the contrary is the case.

The
question of NAC's independence, for example, is no longer a matter for serious
debate. The Scriptures tell us that "where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also." In an
official NAC document entitled "Budget Comparison--1968 and
1969," dated April 15, 1968, the following items appear.

"Total
approved budget calendar year 1968, $154,034; total projected calendar year
1969, $154,000. Estimated income 1968:
grant from American Foundation for the Blind $70,000; grant from
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare $75,000. Estimated
income 1969: grant from American Foundation for the Blind
$70,000; grant from Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
$70,000."

Today (in 1971) the overwhelming
majority of NAC's funds still come from HEW and the American Foundation for
the Blind.
Many of the NAC meetings are held at the AFB building in New
York, and the executive director of NAC is a former Foundation
staff member, the same one who was on "loan" to COMSTAC. When the
first annual NAC awards were given, in 1970, it may be of
significance that two recipients were named: Mr. Jansen Noyes,
President of the Board of Directors of the American Foundation
for the Blind; and Miss Mary Switzer, the long-time head of
rehabilitation in the federal Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare. Even more to the point may be Miss Switzer's
comments upon that occasion as reported in the NAC minutes of
April 24, 1970: "She predicted that difficult times might lie
ahead if agencies accept the idea of standards but do nothing
about them. The expending or withholding of public money can
provide the incentive that is needed."

Thus
spoke Miss Switzer, confirming what Federation leaders had predicted and
COMSTAC spokesmen had denied a decade ago. The
full meaning of Miss Switzer's statement was spelled out by
Alexander Handel, Executive Director of NAC, as reported in the
NAC minutes of April 25, 1970: "Mr. Handel reported a new and
important step in encouraging accreditation. The Council of State
Administrators has passed a resolution that by July 1, 1974,
state rehabilitation agencies will require that agencies from
which they purchase services be accredited." The use of the word
"encouraging" in this context is almost reminiscent of George
Orwell's double-think and new-speak of 1984--only thirteen years
away, at that. Perhaps sooner. The "encouraging" of agencies to
seek accreditation from NAC will probably be called by some by
the ugly name of blackmail. The pressure for conformity and the
concentration of power could well be the most serious threat to
good programs for the blind in the decade ahead.

Federationists who attended the 1966 Louisville convention
will remember that a report on COMSTAC and NAC was given at that
time. I had been officially asked to serve on the NAC board. The
offer was, of course, tokenism of the most blatant sort; and the
question was whether to accept, leaving the Federation open to
the charge of approving NAC actions, or to reject, exposing us to
the charge of non-cooperation and leaving us with no means of
observing and getting information. Federationists will remember
that it was decided that I should accept the invitation. Thus, I
have been a member of the NAC board since its inception. In the
spring of 1970 I was elected to another three-year term. There
are more than thirty NAC board members, of whom I am one.

While
expressing my minority views, I have tried to be personally congenial and
friendly with the NAC board members.
Nevertheless, tokenism remains tokenism. The other members of the
board not only seemed unconcerned with but unaware of the non-
representative character of NAC. It is as if General Motors,
Chrysler, Ford, and American Motors should set up a council and
put six or seven officials from each of their companies on its
board and then ask the UAW to contribute a single representative.
What would the unions do in such a situation? What would racial
minorities do if their representative organizations were offered
such tokenism--in the establishment and promulgation of standards
affecting their lives? I think we know what they would do. They
would take both political and court action, and they would
instigate mass demonstrations. Perhaps the blind should take a
leaf from the same book. We cannot and should not exhibit endless
patience. We cannot and should not forever tolerate the
intolerable. I continue to sit on the NAC board, but I often
wonder why. It does not discuss the real problems which face the
blind today or the methods of solving those problems. In fact,
NAC itself may well be more a part of the problem than the
solution. I repeat that tokenism by any other name is still
tokenism. In May of 1969, for instance, I received a document
from NAC entitled "Statement of Understanding Among National
Accreditation Council, National Industries for the Blind and the
General Council of Workshops for the Blind." This document was
sent to all NAC board members with the request that they vote to
approve or disapprove it. It contained six points, of which one
and five are particularly pertinent. They are as follows: "1. By
June 30, 1970, all NIB affiliated shops shall have either: a.
applied to NAC for accreditation and submitted a self-study guide
(or) b. applied to the General Council for a Certificate of
Affiliation with NIB and submitted a self-study guide. 5.
Certificates of Affiliation with NIB entitle shops to membership
in the General Council and to access through NIB to: a.
Government business allocated by NIB, b. Commercial business
allocated by NIB, c. Consulting services of NIB, d. Any and all
other benefits of NIB affiliation." In other words if a workshop
for the blind wishes any contracts from the federal government,
it had better get into line and "volunteer" for accreditation by
NAC. No pressure, of course, merely a system of "voluntary
accreditation!" As you might expect, I voted no on the NIB
agreement. Along with my ballot, I sent the following comments:

"I
do not approve this statement because I do not believe government contracts
and other benefits to workshops should be
conditioned upon their accreditation by NAC. Rather, receipt of
government contracts and other benefits should depend upon the
quality of performance of the workshop in question. Does the shop
pay at least a minimum wage? Do its workers have the rights
associated with collective bargaining? What sort of image of
blindness does it present to the public?

"Prior
to NAC (in the days of COMSTAC) many of us said that NAC would become a vehicle
for blackmail--dressed out nicely, of
course, in professional jargon. It would appear that the prophecy
is beginning to come true, earlier assurances to the contrary
notwithstanding."

As I say, I voted no. What do you suppose the final tally of
the ballots indicated? Twenty-seven yes votes and one no vote.
How different the results might have been if there had been equal
representation of the blind themselves and the agencies! Yes,
tokenism is still tokenism.

In order that my position cannot be twisted or
misinterpreted I would like to say that the quarrel is not with
the concept of accreditation itself. Rather, we object to what is
being done in the name of accreditation. Proper accreditation by
a properly accredited group is a constructive thing. What NAC is
doing is something else altogether.

There is, of course, not time here to go into the details of
all of the standards originally developed by COMSTAC and how
being fostered by NAC, but a brief sample is sufficient to make
the point. Federationists will remember that the Braille Monitorfor February, 1966, carried an analysis of the COMSTAC standards
on physical facilities. That analysis said in part:

--------------------

The standards [on physical facilities] are perhaps notable
chiefly in that they are so vague and minimal as to be equally
applicable to office buildings, nursing homes, or universities by
the simple substitution of the names of these other
facilities....

Perhaps a brief run-down of the standards themselves would
serve as the best and most complete illustration (headings
theirs).

1. Overall Suitability--The total facility is constructed to
best serve the needs of the particular agency. It will adequately
serve everyone concerned. It will meet the requirements of its
governing body, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,
and the city building code. The physical facilities will be
helpful to the program.

2. Location--The facility is located where it can easily be
reached by staff, clients, and others who need to use it. The
facility should be close to shopping and other community
interests. The location is reasonably safe, with hazards
minimized.

3. Grounds--The grounds will be large
enough to allow for
future expansion. They will be pleasant ("free of undue nuisances
and hazards,"), with parking areas and roadways. Signs will be
posted to help people locate the proper areas.

4. Activity Area--The layout of the facility will be
efficient. The facility will be designed for the planned
activities, will be large enough and well organized (reception
rooms next to entries, work areas together, etc.). Sufficient
maintenance will be provided for.

5. Privacy--People will have as much privacy as individual
cases call for. Confidentiality will be maintained.

6. Health and Safety--The health and safety codes of the
community will be met. Sufficient heat and light will be
provided. Sanitary conditions will be as good as possible.
Suitable entries will be provided for wheelchairs, etc. Safety
features will be related to the level of competence of the
occupants, the activities undertaken, and the equipment used.
Adequate first aid facilities are provided.

7. Fire and Disaster Protection--All buildings will be so
designed and equipped as to minimize the danger of fire. The
buildings will be inspected by local authorities and/or
independent authorities and records of inspection kept. Smoking
areas are clearly specified. Proper protection shall be provided
the occupants of the facility to minimize danger should fire or
disaster occur. Suitable fire extinguishers will be provided.
Fire alarms will be installed as to be heard throughout the
facility. Fire drills will be held irregularly. Special
provisions will be made for fire warnings to deaf-blind.

8.
Maintenance--"The condition of the physical facility
gives evidence of planful and effective maintenance and
housekeeping."

9. Remodeling--When remodeling is undertaken, it should be
to best suit the needs of the program.

The preceding is an inclusive summary! One can imagine the
breadth of interpretation that can result from application of
these standards. One can also imagine the range of individual
whim and axe-grinding, not to say blackmail and favoritism, that
can enter into the proposed accreditation of agencies for the
blind based on such vague and capricious requirements. The
danger to be anticipated is the possibility of varying
application of standards to friends and foes when "accrediting" agencies....

One
is tempted to dismiss this entire report of "Standards
for Physical Facilities" with the single word, "Blah!" But more
intensive study indicates otherwise. Tucked away among the
platitudes and the generalities are the age-old misconceptions
and stereotypes.

What, for instance, is meant by
the requirement that a facility for the blind be located near to shopping
and other
community interests, and that it be in a location reasonably
safe, with hazards minimized? The exact words of the committee
are, "Where undue hazards cannot be avoided, proper measures are
instituted to assure the safety of all persons coming to the
agency. (For example, where an agency is on a street with heavy
traffic, a light or crosswalk or other means is available for
safe crossing by blind persons.)"

If this standard is simply meant to express the general
pious platitude that everybody ought to be as safe as possible,
then what a farcical and pathetic waste of time and money to
assemble a committee to spell out what everybody already knows.
On the other hand, if the standard means to imply that the blind
are not able to live and compete among the ordinary hazards of
the regular workaday world and that they need more shelter and
care than others, the implications are not only false but the are
insidiously vicious.

Of a similar character is the
committee's statement that the
grounds must "provide pleasant and appropriate surroundings, and
be free of undue nuisances and hazards." Surely we do not need a
special commission on standards and accreditation to tell us that
people should live in pleasant surroundings that are free of
undue hazards, if this is all that is meant. If, however, the
committee is saying that the blind require surroundings that are
more "pleasant and free from hazards" than the surroundings
required by other people, one cannot help but be unhappily
reminded of the 19th century concept that the blind should be
entertained and provided with recreation, that they should be
helped in every way possible to "live with their misfortune."

If this type of analysis seems blunt, one can only reply
that this is no time for nice words and mousy phrases. The people
who were formerly the Commission on Standards, and are now the
National Accreditation, hold themselves out to the public at
large as the qualified experts, the people who have the right to
make standards and grant or refuse accreditation to all and the
sundry. These are not children indulging in the innocent games of
childhood. They are adults, playing with the lives of hundreds of
people.

--------------------

Federationists should review the Braille Monitor from 1965
through 1968 to study the COMSTAC reports in light of present
developments. I have not tried here to analyze the content of
those reports. Mostly it is bad, and the standards and rules
established by COMSTAC and NAC harmful. Let anyone who doubts
this assertion read the COMSTAC reports and the Monitor analyses.
They speak for themselves.

One final matter requires comment. At a recent meeting of
the National Accreditation Council I was telling a new member of
the board (a prominent businessman totally uninformed about the
problems faced by the blind) that I thought most of the actions
of NAC were irrelevant. He seemed surprised and said something to
this effect:

"If you think what we are doing
here is not relevant, what
is relevant?"

To which I said, "Last fall
a blind man in Minneapolis (a person who had worked for several years as
a computer programmer
at Honeywell and was laid off because of the recession) applied
to take a civil service examination for computer programmer with
the city of Minneapolis. His application was rejected, on the
grounds of blindness. The National Federation of the Blind helped
him with advice and legal counsel. As a result, he took the
examination, and he now has a job with the city of Minneapolis as
a computer programmer.

"How many of the people who are on the NAC board," I asked,
"are even aware that such an incident occurred? How many of them
think it is important?"

"Or," I went on, "consider
another incident. A few weeks ago in Ohio a blind high school senior (duly
elected by her class)
was denied the right to attend the American Legion Girls' State.
The story was carried nationwide by United Press, and the matter
is still pending. Do you see any of these people here today
concerned or excited about this case? Do you see them trying to
do anything about it?"

"Well," my companion replied, "your
organization seems to be working on matters like this. Maybe NAC is doing
good in other
areas."

"The difficulty," I told him, "is
that the actions of NAC are helping to create the kind of problem situations
I have been
describing to you."

"How?" he asked
me.

"NAC," I said, "accredits
workshops, for instance. What kind of standards does it use in determining
whether a shop should be
approved and presented to the public as a worthy and progressive
institution? NAC is concerned about whether the workshop has a
good accounting system. It is concerned about good pay and good
working conditions for the professional staff (almost all of them
sighted). It is concerned with the physical facilities and
(perhaps) whether there is a psychologist or psychiatrist
available to minister to the blind workers. But what about
minimum wages for those same blind workers, or the right of
collective bargaining, or grievance committees? On such items NAC
is silent. It will accredit a sheltered shop which pays less than
fifty cents an hour to its blind workers. By so doing, it puts
its stamp of approval on such practices. It helps perpetuate the
system that has kept the blind in bondage and made them
second-class citizens through the centuries. It helps to slam the
door on the computer programmer in Minneapolis and the high
school student in Ohio. Worst of all, perhaps, it reinforces and
helps to continue the myth that blindness means inferiority, that
the blind are unable to compete on terms of equality in regular
industry or the professions, that the blind should be grateful
for what they have and stay in their places. The workshop example
is only that, an example. The same theme is everywhere present in
NAC's action and standards--and, for that matter, in its very
makeup."

As we talked, my businessman companion seemed shocked that
there were sheltered shops paying less than the minimum wage to
blind workers. Yet, he is on the NAC board, lending his name to
the accreditation. I pointed out to him a variety of other ways
in which the work of NAC is helping to promote misconceptions
about blindness and add to our problems. I can only hope that the
seeds I planted will bear fruit.

To round out the picture we are considering today, one
further item might be mentioned. The April 25, 1968 minutes of
NAC report as follows:

"Over thirty agencies
and schools have indicated, in writing, an interest in applying for accreditation.
Official
applications have been received from six agencies. Some of these
have already paid the application fee. The American Council of
the Blind is the first membership association to apply for
membership in the National Accreditation Council."

In a letter dated July 11, 1968, from Alexander Handel,
Executive Director of the National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped, to members
of the NAC Board of Directors an article is discussed which
appears in the July, 1968, issue of the Braille Forum (the
official publication of the American Council of the Blind). The
article says in part:

"It should be emphasized,
however, that from the first, ACB officers and members actively consulted
with the various
committees developing the standards, and ACB was the only
national organization of the blind which both participated in and
financially supported the National Conference on Standards which
led to the formation of the National Accreditation Council."

I give you this quotation without comment. It speaks for
itself. So do the actions of NAC. I presume all of you have read
the exchange of correspondence concerning the appearance of NAC
representatives at this meeting today. The contempt and
condescension inherent in NAC's bland assumption that it was
proper to reject our invitation to appear at this convention
because a debate might occur are clear for all to see. Likewise,
the agreement just concluded between NAC and the American
Foundation for the Blind whereby the Foundation will work with
agencies and help prepare them for accreditation is equally
revealing.

In any case the one central point which must be repeatedly
hammered home is the total irrelevance of NAC as it is now
constituted and as it is now performing. What we need today and
in the years ahead is not more detailed standards but a real
belief in the competence and innate normality of blind people, a
willingness on the part of agency officials to help blind people
secure meaningful training and competitive employment, a
recognition that the blind are able to participate fully in the
mainstream of American life. We need acceptance and equality, not
shelter and care.

When seen in this light, NAC must be viewed as one of our
most serious problems in the decade ahead. The blind of the
nation should thoroughly inform themselves about its activities
and should insist upon a voice in determining the character of
programs affecting their lives. We should insist that state and
federal governments not delegate their powers of setting
standards for state agencies to a private group, which is not
responsive to the needs or views of the consumers of the
services. It is true that many of the agencies doing work with
the blind need to be reformed and improved, but NAC is not the
entity to do it. We the organized blind intend (in the best
tradition of American democracy) to have something to say about
the scope and direction of the reform and the improvement. We are
not children, nor are we psychological cripples. We are free
citizens, fully capable of participating in the determination of
our own destiny, and we have every right and intention of having
something to say about what is done with our lives.

NAC AT 25: A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS

by Peggy Pinder

Anniversaries are times to pause and look back, to take
stock and contemplate the future. As everyone in the blindness
field knows, the National Accreditation Council for Agencies
Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) is approaching
its twenty-fifth birthday, so the time would seem right for an
in-depth look. What has NAC done? Where has it been, and where is
it going?

At the time of its founding, NAC proclaimed
that it would
serve the "universe of agencies" serving blind people in the
United States. It said that this universe consisted of
approximately 500 agencies. The major agencies in the blindness
field are, of course, the state vocational rehabilitation
agencies, the schools, and the sheltered shops. Each of the fifty
states and the District of Columbia has a rehabilitation agency
(total 51). The American Foundation for the Blind lists 71
schools in its Directory of Services for Blind and Visually
Impaired Persons in the United States, 23rd Edition, Copyright,
1988. National Industries for the Blind lists 80 workshops on its
roster. Thus, there should be a total of about 200 major agencies
in the United States. From these numbers it can easily be seen
that NAC contemplated accrediting all of the large mainstream
agencies, as well as about 300 of the smaller regional or city-
based agencies scattered throughout the country. But in its first
quarter century, how has it measured up?

Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies

The federal Rehabilitation Services Administration
identifies one agency in each state and the District of Columbia
to receive the congressionally appropriated vocational
rehabilitation money to give services to the blind of that state.
The number of state agencies that have agreed to accept NAC
accreditation has always been low. A mere ten of these agencies
held NAC accreditation in 1990. These ten are Arizona, Arkansas,
Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey,
Oklahoma, and Virginia. This means that after nearly twenty-five
years of arduous work NAC can claim as members fewer than twenty
percent of the state agencies delivering basic services to the
blind of the continental United States.

But the
small number of accredited state rehabilitation agencies is not the entire
story. NAC holds itself out as the
nation's standard-setter in work with the blind. How do these ten
agencies perform? Leaders of the blind from throughout the nation
were surveyed on this point. Each survey respondent travels
around the country regularly, and routinely discusses matters
concerning blindness with people living across the nation. These
leaders have the sophistication and the information to look
beyond agency claims of achievement to the results of agency work
in the lives of blind men and women, state by state and in
comparison with other agencies. Survey respondents were asked to
list the ten worst vocational rehabilitation agencies in the
country without knowing why the list was wanted. In every single
case, eight or nine of the NAC-accredited agencies appeared on
the list. As one survey respondent commented, "If you are a blind
person living in one or another of most of these ten states, it
is almost impossible for you to get quality services."

Schools

As has been said, the American Foundation for the Blind
lists seventy-one schools in its Directory of Services. Of these,
only 26 schools (or 37 percent) have agreed to accept NAC
accreditation.

Workshops

Of the 80 workshops listed on the roster of National
Industries for the Blind, only 33 (or 41 percent) have agreed to
accept NAC accreditation. While workshops are accredited in the
highest proportion of the three major service categories, it must
be remembered that National Industries for the Blind offered four
years ago to pay all costs of accreditation for any workshop that
would agree to accredit. The offer has been available for those
four years, and it remains available today. In view of this free
offer (and there has been a great deal of pressure to accept it)
a showing of only forty-one percent is astonishingly low. As
recent events have demonstrated, NAC is not loved by a majority
of the workshops. In fact, from 1986 through 1990, only two
workshops agreed to accept NAC accreditation while three dropped
it.

Totals

Approaching its twenty-fifth anniversary, NAC has accredited
only 34 percent of the agencies in the three large service
categories. At the moment (late 1990) it is accrediting only
ninety-seven agencies in the United States--fewer than one-fifth
of the universe it defined for itself at its founding. It also
accredits one agency in Canada.

The Rest of the Ninety-Eight

Who are the other agencies accredited by NAC, the ones not
included on any of the lists of the three major service-provider
types? These are entities drawn from that three hundred-agency
figure NAC placed in its original estimate of five hundred
agencies to accredit--the regional and city-based agencies around
the country. The list of NAC-accredited agencies is conspicuously
padded. Almost one-third of the list of NAC members
(twenty-eight) do not appear on any of the three lists of major
service providers. That is quite a high proportion of smaller
agencies, but they swell NAC's list of adherents, bringing it to
its current size. Yet, this is a mere ten percent of the three
hundred smaller agencies originally defined by NAC. Here is a
sampling: Center for the Partially Sighted, Santa Monica,
California; Visually Impaired Persons of Southwest Florida, North
Ft. Myers; Vision Enrichment Services, Grand Rapids, Michigan;
the Alliance for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Memphis,
Tennessee; and the Sight Center, Toledo, Ohio.

Geography

An odd geographical pattern emerges from an analysis of the
NAC-accredited agencies. A mere thirteen are accredited by NAC
from that vast part of the country that lies west of
Nebraska--roughly the Mountain Time Zone and farther west.
Apparently, as one gets farther from New York, the influence of
NAC wanes in proportion. And nearly half of these western
accredited agencies lie within the borders of Arizona--the home
of NAC'S long-time and belligerently loyal former executive
director, Richard Bleecker. In fact, if one counts the accredited
agencies in four states (Arizona, Florida, New York, and
Pennsylvania), one has accounted for one-third (thirty-two) of
the NAC list. Yet it would be very hard to find anyone familiar
with the conditions of blind people in these four states and
throughout the rest of the country who would maintain that these
four lead the rest in excellence--or, for that matter, even fall
within the top ranks.

Sixteen states have no NAC-accredited agencies at all. They
are: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of
Columbia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada,
North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wyoming.
Fifteen more states have only one NAC-accredited agency. They
are: Alabama, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island,
South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Costs to Agencies

What are the costs of this accreditation which so very many
agencies have chosen to reject? There are several. One (and only
one) is the actual outlay of cash. In the course of considering
re-accreditation, the Virginia Department for the Visually
Handicapped recently reviewed the following figures:

$12,000 annual accreditation fees ($2,400 per year for each
of five years)

$5,000 cost to agency for on-site review team

Total for the five-year period, $17,000

According to Grant Mack, one of NAC's principal proponents,
the annual dues are figured on a sliding scale at 0.0075 of
annual budget. However, the minimum is $250, and the scale
escalates quickly to reach the top level of $2,250 per year,
according to Mack, who says that no agency is required to pay
more than this top figure, regardless of budget. If Mack has
accurately described the assessment schedule, then any agency
with an income in excess of $300,000 will pay the top assessment.

At any rate, according to those close to the situation in
Virginia, the agency was assured by NAC officials that the
on-site review would be conducted as cheaply as possible. In
other words, review team members would be brought from nearby,
saving travel costs. It should be noted that it took the Virginia
Department several years beyond its 5-year accreditation term to
decide to accept re-accreditation by NAC. During this time (and
in flagrant violation of its own carefully-stated accreditation
standards) NAC simply continued the accreditation status of the
Virginia agency even though the annual fee was not paid and the
agency did not request continuation of its accredited status.
Obviously NAC hoped to convince Virginia to sign up again and was
willing to beg, wheedle, and pay to get the job done.

One can be certain that the Virginia review team members
(when they are appointed) will not only be from nearby but will
also be strongly predisposed to grant the re-accreditation just
to keep Virginia in the fold--a predisposition which necessarily
defeats the purpose of the on-site review. NAC estimated that the
review would cost $3,500, but Virginia officials are sure that
the cost will reach at least $5,000 unless the hand-picked
members of the team don't pass along their costs. Based on NAC's
conservative figures, accreditation will cost Virginia over
$3,000 per year for the five-year accreditation period. Using
more realistic figures and adding in the costs of the self-study,
it is more likely to cost $4,000 to $6,000 per year. In fact,
another agency recently considering NAC accreditation was told
that the cost would be $6,000 to $7,000 per year.

But there is a second, hidden cost not directly paid to
NAC--the self-study. This step in the accreditation process is
performed before the on-site team arrives. Virginia Department
staff declined to estimate the cost for this preliminary step of
re-accreditation. They did so, based on NAC's assurances that the
self-study step could be accomplished very inexpensively by
merely copying the work that was done the previous time onto the
new forms, with obvious and appropriate updating of information.
This portrayal of the self-study by NAC is widely at variance
with the other version which it usually puts forward when it is
touting the rigor and thoroughness of its procedures to the
public and to foundation and federal officials. This alternate
version holds that the self-study is the heart of the
accreditation process, the means by which staff members working
at the agency can step back and (with the help of professionally-
created assessment tools) review from the loftier perspective of
goals, objectives, and missions the operation of the institution
in which they do their day-to-day tasks. In this view of self-
study, involved staffers disengage themselves from their normal
duties, offer honest assessments, and learn how they and their
agency can work better through honest self-analysis and clear-
headed criticism. Done this way, the self-study would necessarily
cost thousands and thousands of dollars in staff time.

The final cost paid by an agency accrediting with NAC is
that of soured relations with the blind community. NAC is
offensive and insulting to many blind people, and an accredited
agency can expect that its NAC membership will complicate its on-
going relationship with members of the blind community. Some
agencies do not choose to engage in this interaction with blind
consumers, so they are (at least, in the short run) unaware of
this fact of life. Agencies that are interested in their blind
clients and wish to avoid a source of conflict simply decline
association with NAC or abandon the relationship created by
others before them.

Expansion and Attrition

In its early years NAC experienced steady growth in its list
of accredited agencies. NAC acquired half of all the agencies it
has ever accredited in its first eight years, and during the same
time period (1968-1975) it did not lose a single agency.

After 1975 the picture changed. NAC began to lose agencies
in 1976. In no year after 1975 has NAC accredited more than ten
new agencies. In one year, 1988, it accredited no new agencies.
NAC's peak year was 1986 when it had 104 member agencies. Since
that time the trend has been steadily downward. In the most
recent five-year period, 1986-1990, NAC accredited ten new
agencies while sixteen dissociated themselves from it.

Benefits of NAC Accreditation

People generally pay money in exchange for some benefit, and
institutions do the same. What one gets from NAC is the
questionable privilege of using its seal of approval and the even
more questionable honor of a place on its list of accredited
agencies. People often ask what else the agency gets. The answer
is nothing. Some describe the NAC seal as aesthetically
unpleasant, symbolically offensive, and otherwise worthless. (It
is a stylized eye--an odd symbol for blindness.) NAC adherents
describe the seal as symbolizing the agency's upholding of the
high-quality standards approved by the profession itself. Either
way, that is all there is to it. There is no other benefit to NAC
accreditation.

NAC has tried for years to add a
third dimension to its accreditation. This attempt can best be described
as an effort at
legalized blackmail since it would actually be a form of
compelled adherence to NAC. NAC has tried repeatedly to condition
every agency's receipt of vocational rehabilitation funds on NAC
accreditation. NAC has recently coined a term for this concept,
calling it "linkage." NAC has declared that it will seek linkage
of accreditation with funding in the 1991 reauthorization of the
Rehabilitation Act. If NAC has its way, no state rehabilitation
agency will get federal money unless the agency is accredited.
With the low number of vocational rehabilitation agencies
currently agreeing to accept NAC accreditation, this will clearly
be an uphill battle with no chance of ultimate success. In its
most recent attempt to foster linkage, NAC sought to have
National Industries for the Blind (one of NAC's strongest
supporters) take a stand in favor of "linkage." Even the NIB
board, which is supporting NAC financially, refused to adopt a
resolution supporting compelled accreditation. (See the article
entitled "NIB, NAC, and Tanstaafl" elsewhere in this issue.)

NAC Agencies Whose Accreditation Expires in 1991

The following list shows agencies whose NAC accreditation
(according to NAC's own statistics) expires in 1991. There are
37. Curiously, more than half of these 37 agencies originally had
accreditation only through 1990. It appears that NAC simply
extended the accreditation for 19 agencies from 1990 to 1991.
Originally, there were 31 agencies whose accreditation expired in
1990. Of these 31, 8 were re-accredited, but for terms varying
from two years to four years to the standard five-year re-
accreditation period. One dissociated from NAC, and three are
still shown as having their accreditation expire in 1990. Of the
31 agencies, only 9 were handled in some way by December of 1990.

The vast majority of the 31 agencies whose accreditation was
due to expire in 1990 are now shown as having their accreditation
expire in 1991. There could be several reasons for this. One
possibility is that NAC is so small that it simply cannot deal
with the re-accreditation of 31 agencies in a single year.
Another possibility is that some of the agencies whose
accreditation was extended have no intention of re-accrediting,
but NAC is trying to keep them in the fold by extending the
accreditation while it pleads with them to stick around. Still
another possibility (and one experienced by a number of agencies
in the past) is that the agency has decided to dissociate itself
from NAC but cannot convince NAC to take it off the list. For any
or all of these reasons, the majority of agencies due to be re-
accredited in 1990 are now scheduled to have their accreditation
expire or be renewed in 1991.

Those agencies listed by NAC as coming up for re-
accreditation in 1991 are listed here. Those agencies whose names
are starred once were originally scheduled for re-accreditation
in 1990. Those agencies whose names are starred twice were
originally scheduled for re-accreditation in 1989 or before and
have been carried forward to 1991 by NAC. One final oddity
appears on the 1990 list. Though NAC only managed to handle nine
of the thirty-one agencies scheduled for handling in 1990, it
found the time to deal with one agency scheduled for re-
accreditation in 1991, the Arkansas School for the Blind. The
Arkansas School is one of the oldest and staunchest adherents of
NAC and, although its accreditation extended into 1991, NAC
jumped it ahead of many agencies scheduled for 1990 review and
has already re-accredited it. This commentary concerning NAC re-
accreditation would not be complete without noting that the
Arkansas School, according to NAC's records, received only a two-
year extension of accreditation rather than the standard five
years. Here is the list:

From the Editor: We do not vouch for the accuracy
of this
list. It represents NAC's claim of membership as of July, 1990.
The blind and interested professionals should check this list
well and verify that the agencies which are named actually admit
to association with NAC. This, indeed, is a roll call of shame
and should be treated accordingly.

School for the Blind
Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind
207 North San Marco Avenue
St. Augustine, FL 32084
(904) 823-4000
Mr. Jerry Stewart, Principal
Fiscal Year Ending: June
Accreditation Expires: December, 1993

HONOR ROLL OF PRIDE:
A LIST OF AGENCIES WHICH HAVE WITHDRAWN FROM NAC ACCREDITATION

From the Editor: The following twenty-six agencies can
hold their heads high. They once agreed to accept NAC accreditation but have
now withdrawn. The blind of the nation salute them. Why, one may ask, would
we salute agencies that were once accredited and have now withdrawn instead
of saluting those that have never accepted the NAC stigma? We do salute that
broader group, but (as in the biblical story) we especially rejoice at the
return of the prodigal son. In the following list the first date is the time
of original NAC accreditation; the second date is the time of withdrawal from
NAC. Here is the honor roll of pride:

From the Editor: Ed and Toni Eames chair the National
Federation of the Blind of California's Guide Dog Committee. Dr.
Eames is president of the Fresno Chapter of the NFB of
California, and Mrs. Eames is first vice president. Both Dr. and
Mrs. Eames are adjunct professors of sociology at California
State University at Fresno, and lecturers at the California
School of Professional Psychology. Here is their report
concerning the California State Board of Guide Dogs for the
Blind.

During Ed's recuperation from surgery, we had the
opportunity to immerse ourselves in the engrossing account of our
organization's history, Walking Alone and Marching Together. It
is apparent from this superlative narrative that we, the
organized blind of America, have come a long way since our
founding in 1940. It is equally apparent, however, that we have a
long way to go to achieve full integration into American society,
to achieve our goals of security, equality, and opportunity.

A major theme of our history as a social movement has been
the conflict between us and a number of agencies ostensibly
established to help us. Many agencies, private and public, have
seen our emergent consumerism as a threat to their monolithic
control over the lives of their clients. From this perspective,
NAC can be seen as an attempt to strengthen and justify the
control of the agencies over our lives. An interesting parallel
development has occurred in California, where the three existing
guide dog schools exemplify the agencies, where the State Board
of Guide Dogs for the Blind is analogous to NAC, and where we,
the consumers, have to fight off the joint attempts by these two
entities to diminish our rights and undermine our attempts to
control our own destinies.

California is the only state with a governmental agency
controlling guide dog activities. Established more than forty
years ago, the Board was a response to the proliferation of
organizations emerging in the state to provide guide dogs to
blinded World War II veterans. While the Board was effective in
eliminating many of the questionable organizations, a similar
shaking-down process took place in the rest of the country
without the establishment of a governmental agency. Though the
seven-member Board is part of the California Department of
Consumer Affairs, it seems less concerned with securing consumer
rights than with preserving the power of the existing schools.
Two Board members are guide dog users, another represents the
Department of Rehabilitation, and the rest represent the public.

Approximately one-and-a-half years ago, the Board was
empowered by the state legislature to conduct a year-long study,
including public hearings, to establish recommendations about the
future of assistance dogs in California. Assistance dogs include
guide dogs partnered with blind people, signal or hearing dogs
partnered with deaf people, and service dogs partnered with
physically disabled people.

Although the Board held nine public hearings, very few
disabled people were informed of them, and very few were aware of
the mission of the Board. On the other hand, representatives of
the three guide dog schools--Guide Dogs for the Blind, San
Rafael; International Guiding Eyes, Sylmar; and Guide Dogs of the
Desert, Palm Springs--presented their views at almost all of the
meetings. Some representatives of the other assistance dog
providers presented testimony at some of the public hearings.
Representatives of bus driver unions, the restaurant industry,
and other businesses presented their concerns.

After the conclusion of the study, the Board began preparing
a preliminary document summarizing the results and suggesting
changes in the current law and in the Board's status. Major
points developed in this document called for converting the
present board to the Board of Assistance Dogs for the Disabled,
expanding the Board membership to include signal and service dog
users, extending licensing to signal and service dog trainers and
programs, outlawing privately trained assistance dogs, placing
residential training options entirely in the hands of the guide
dog schools, requiring an identification card for all school
graduates, and developing an 800 telephone line to help
assistance dog users faced with access problems.

It was at this stage that we began our discussions with Pat
Urena, secretary for the Board and the only paid staff member.
(It should be noted, incidentally, that her husband, Manuel
Urena, is a member of the Board.) Mrs. Urena sent us a copy of
the report, which we read with great care and interest. Assuming
the Board was serious in its desire for consumer input and
response, we wrote the following letter, which is reproduced in
part:

Fresno, California
April 4, 1990

Dear Pat,

Thanks for sending the preliminary documents the State Board
has prepared for the legislature. Once again, we must commend the
Board for undertaking a prodigious task and extending the rights
currently enjoyed by guide dogs to hearing and service dogs.
However, there are a number of aspects of the document to which
we take strong exception.

We believe that the document, as it exists, provides
protection and safeguards for the assistance dog schools rather
than for consumers. Specifically, no provision is made to certify
dogs trained outside the school environment, even if these dogs
and their disabled partners demonstrate the highest standards of
obedience training, civility, control, and assistance functions.
For example Toni's guide dog, Ivy, who was privately trained and
was legal in New York, would have no legal rights in California.
This would raise the constitutional issue of promulgating a state
law which hampers Toni's right to move freely from state to state
without any restrictions. Some provision should be made to
certify the non-school assistance dog who meets all the
behavioral requirements for an assistance dog. This could be done
by the schools or by the Board. We are not talking about large
numbers of teams, but about consumerism and choice.

If
we are going to call these assistance dog training
organizations "schools," we should recognize changes taking place
in the educational sector. Presently, we give credit for life
experience and provide the opportunity for advanced placement in
many subjects. An equivalent process should be available for
those disabled people who obtain assistance dogs outside the
school setting.

Related to the issue of non-school training is the
recommendation that licensed trainers be recognized as such only
while working for a licensed school. Since the licensing of guide
dog trainers has been done by the Board, such licenses should not
be dependent on continued employment at a licensed school. In
fact, in the past such experienced trainers have sometimes been
the source of non-school-trained guide dogs. To invalidate the
license of a trainer who leaves a school is analogous to taking
away a lawyer's right to practice after leaving a law firm or a
nurse's right to practice his or her profession while not
employed at a hospital.

Another anti-consumer provision is the exclusion of at-home
residential training for first-time assistance dog applicants.
The experience of Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation in the
northeastern United States has clearly demonstrated the efficacy
of such a program. In addition, the provision requiring re-
trainees to spend at least half as long in getting successor
assistance dogs as they did for their first dogs is much too
rigid a requirement. People differ in their abilities and
training needs.

The suggestion that non-California assistance dog users
apply for temporary certification while visiting California is
another anti-consumer thrust of the proposed legislation. It
appears that lack of such certification would invalidate the
assistance dog user's right of access. We recognize that the
Board's intent is to protect out-of-state assistance dog users
who might have access problems. However, the proposal has many
flaws. How will the Board notify assistance dog users throughout
the country about this policy? We estimate a current population
of 15,000 assistance dog users in the United States. Processing
applications for temporary certification would take time and
money and would establish yet another bureaucratic structure. The
suggestion of spending limited taxpayer money on such a program
is unnecessary.

By defining a guide dog as one trained by a licensed trainer
working at a licensed California guide dog school, the Board
denies legitimacy to all teams trained outside the state. We
realize that this rule is not adhered to and that recognition is
given to graduates of the seven non-California schools in the
United States. However, when a similar rule is extended to
hearing and service dog schools, the issue of acceptance and
evaluation become crucial. There are at least 40 hearing and
service dog programs in the country. In addition, new ones are
emerging in many regions. The Board will not have the staff,
money, or time to investigate and evaluate each program to
determine its suitability for certification.

What is missing from the proposal is any attempt to protect
the rights of consumers of the services of assistance dog
programs. We have been hearing a number of complaints, and we
strongly recommend the establishment of a grievance procedure for
the hearing of complaints against the schools. The 800 telephone
number procedure is primarily intended for registration of
complaints about access by assistance dog users and complaints by
the public about assistance dog users. There is no grievance
procedure for the assistance dog user or potential user who has a
complaint against a training program. The Board should establish
a committee to look into complaints of this nature.

We summarize our objections to the current document by
stating that, from our point of view, it does nothing to protect
the rights of consumers, while fostering the power of the
schools. We agree with the Board's desire to extend access rights
to all assistance dogs, but feel that the current document does
more harm than good.

Sincerely,
Ed and Toni Eames

Continuing to work under the assumption that the Board was
truly interested in consumer input, we prepared and submitted the
following set of recommendations to rectify some of the glaring
errors of the initial draft:

1. A guide dog is any specially trained dog working with a
legally blind person. Parallel definitions can be used for
hearing and service dogs. (Such a definition is currently used in
New York and Connecticut.)

2. Any assistance dog trained by an organization established
to train dogs for disabled people will be recognized as a
certified assistance dog. (This gets rid of the cumbersome and
probably illegal attempt to define assistance dogs as those
graduated from licensed California training centers.)

3. An assistance dog must be well-trained, well-behaved, and
under the control of the disabled person at all times in public
places. (This provision must be included to protect the public.)

4. Assistance dogs trained outside school settings can be
certified by any school or by the Board. (This would validate
dogs such as Toni Eames's dog, Ivy.)

5. A licensed trainer will retain the right to train
assistance dogs after leaving a training center. (Licensed
trainers should not be de-licensed when they leave a school. If
the demand for assistance dogs is going to increase, we need a
large pool of qualified trainers.)

6. Eliminate all attempts to certify assistance dog users
who visit the state.

7. All assistance dog users are guaranteed rights of access
to all public places. (This must be clearly stated with the legal
recourse suggested in the Board's recommendations.)

On June 30, 1990, the Board presented its final report to
Senator Milton Marks, Chair, California Senate Subcommittee on
the Rights of the Disabled. It was obvious from this 22-page
document that the Board was not interested in consumer input or
the opinions of the three unlicensed California assistance dog
providers. One of the few changes made was the abandonment of
what came to be known as the "Visa program." This was the
requirement that out-of-state assistance dog users apply to the
Board for a temporary identification card at least 30 days before
visiting California. In almost all other respects, the final
recommendations remained unchanged. We now recognized that the
Board not only had the ability to bark, but, if not constrained,
would bite.

We sent the following letter to Senator Marks and other
members of the Subcommittee:

Fresno, California
August 8, 1990

Dear Senator Marks:

We are writing to object to many recommendations made by the
State Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind in its report submitted
to you on June 30, 1990. We believe the recommendations, on the
whole, will diminish our rights as consumers of guide dog school
services and increase the power of the Board and the existing
providers of guide dogs. As co-chairpersons of the Guide Dog
Committee of the National Federation of the Blind of California,
we want to go on record in opposition to an expansion of the
Board and its functions.

For years, blind people have been struggling for autonomy
and independence. We feel the Board is destructive of this goal;
it is paternalistic and custodial and wants to assume the
responsibilities which we, as blind people, should assume. It
now wants to extend its custodial stance to deaf and physically
disabled people. The Board should not be expanded, it should be
abolished. It is regulating an industry, which by its own
admission, does not need regulation. No other state has such a
regulatory agency; the NFB contends it is a waste of California
taxpayers' money. This money would be better spent on developing
employment opportunities for disabled people or improving library
services for us.

An increase in the Board's membership from five to nine and
the assumption of responsibility for licensing signal and service
dog programs and trainers will only increase the budgetary needs
of the Board. It will place barriers in the way of new and
innovative assistance dog training programs. After stating
several times in the report that there is no evidence of poor
training or abusive fund raising by existing signal and service
dog training programs, the report concludes: "The licensing of
assistance dog programs will be possible and beneficial." Who
will benefit? We do not believe we, the consumers, or the public
will benefit from a licensing program. Obviously, the two major
signal dog providers in California do not believe they will
benefit either. We wonder where the reported "substantial
community support for licensing" comes from. Members of the
assistance dog using community had little knowledge of the
purpose of the public hearings nor were their views sought.

As guide dog users, we object to several specific
recommendations which will have a direct and detrimental impact
on us. These are:

1. Home training will only be available to those who have
gone through a four week guide dog training program at a licensed
California school. The schools will determine who is eligible.

This recommendation disregards the track record of Fidelco
Guide Dog Foundation in Connecticut which has been successfully
training first time guide dog users at home for several years.
Fidelco is the fastest growing guide dog program in the country
based on consumer demand. An innovative program like Fidelco's
would not be permitted in California. In addition, the right to
extend this form of training to alumni is placed squarely in the
hands of the schools. No guidelines are set forth. No
definition of "necessary conditions" for home training is
provided. No power is given the blind consumer who wants to
challenge denial by a guide dog school of a request for at-home
training.

2. No opportunity is provided to certify a privately trained
assistance dog.

The Board notes that the vast majority of disabled people
cannot afford such training. We agree, but does this mean the
small minority who want and can afford it should be denied the
opportunity? We think not. Toni's guide dog, Ivy, was privately
trained and, if the Board's recommendations are translated into
law, Ivy will become illegal and lose access rights. In
addition, many signal and service dogs have been privately
trained by deaf and physically disabled owner/trainers. No
evidence, other than rumor and hearsay, is provided by the Board
to suggest privately trained dogs do not measure up to licensed
school standards.

3. Licensed trainers who are no longer employed by a
licensed school lose their right to train assistance dogs.

Such a recommendation, if accepted, gives monopolistic power
to the schools and deprives consumers of the services of
experienced licensed trainers. It is the equivalent of a
physician who can only practice medicine at a hospital. Private
practice would be illegal. Once again, the Board is operating in
a custodial fashion and is giving more and more power to the
schools.

Several issues are raised in the report which are never
dealt with or are misperceptions of reality. We do not believe
an identification program is a solution to our problems of public
access. The taxi driver in San Francisco who drove off as we and
our guide dogs were getting into his taxi couldn't care less
about whether or not we and our guide dogs had identification.
Managers of restaurants, apartment complexes or hotels who refuse
to read the copy of the law we always carry with us would not be
impressed by a fancy identification card. Although the issue of
public safety is raised several times, nowhere in the
recommendations is this issue addressed. It is assumed if all
assistance dogs in the state are trained by licensed training
programs, the public will be protected.

For purposes of legal access and identification, the Board
suggests the recognition of assistance dogs graduated from out-
of-state training programs considered to be "substantially
equivalent" to California licensed programs. Since currently
there are fifty such programs in the other 49 states, how is the
Board going to determine which of these is "substantially
equivalent?" Are members of the Board, at our expense, going to
travel throughout the country to investigate and evaluate these
programs? Will it be necessary to hire new staff members to
carry out these duties? If all out-of-state training programs
are accepted as "substantially equivalent," as we suspect they
will be, then licensing has no value. If non-licensed assistance
dog training programs are "substantially equivalent" to
California licensed programs, then why should we, as taxpayers,
have to assume the financial burden of an unnecessary licensing
board?

Several recommendations made by the Board should be
implemented. Among these are increasing the penalties for
motorists who endanger us and our assistance dogs, giving our
dogs the same legal status as persons in case of vicious dog
attacks, and posting notices in public places about the legal
right of access for assistance dogs and their partners.

As you can see, we believe the results of a year-long series
of public hearings have many negative implications for those of
us who are assistance dog users. We strongly recommend you
disregard most of the recommendations of the Board and move for
its abolition. We do not need regulatory boards which regulate
us rather than the industry they are supposed to control. The
recent debacles at two of the three guide dog schools in this
state bear testimony to the fact that the Board is not, and has
never been, an agency concerned with protecting the rights of
consumers.

Sincerely,
Ed and Toni Eames, Co-Chairpersons
Guide Dog Committee
National Federation of the Blind of California

A special meeting of the NFB of California Guide Dog
Committee was called during our state convention in San Mateo the
first weekend in November, 1990. Two resolutions were adopted by
the convention. One called on the Subcommittee to disregard the
recommendations of the Board, while the other called on the
legislature to abolish the Board.

On the afternoon of November 15, 1990, Senator Marks
conducted a public hearing in Sacramento. During the three-hour
session, more than fifty people presented their views of the
Board's proposal. Every disabled person who spoke attacked some
elements of the Board's suggestions.

Toni's oral presentation was critical of the proposed ban on
private training and the de-licensing of trainers who no longer
work for licensed schools. Ed criticized the Board on several
points, including its proposal to give the existing schools more
power, its avoidance of any description of how the Board would
determine which non-California assistance dog programs were
substantially equivalent to California licensed schools, and the
Board's inability to deal with our current problems of denial of
access rights.

Curiously, representatives of the California affiliate of
the American Council of the Blind were quite critical of the
Board and its recommendations. In addition to opposing the
suggestion that non-school dogs be deprived of legal protection
and licensed trainers who leave schools be denied the right to
continue their careers, they challenged the Board's position on
ownership and repossession of dogs and the Board's inability to
deal with the problems at International Guiding Eyes. But
astonishingly, despite these sweeping condemnations, the two ACB
representatives suggested that the Board be given more authority
and power, but not extend its domain over other assistance dog
programs.

Representatives of the Hearing Society, the San Francisco
Lighthouse, the Blinded Veterans Association, and even the
American Kennel Club spoke out against the Board recommendations.
Testimony presented by representatives of Canine Companions for
Independence and the San Francisco SPCA Hearing Dog Program
attacked the Board's demand that they should be licensed. In
fact, one of the major themes dominating the hearing was the
interpretation of the recommendations as an attack on the rights
of disabled people to choose the kind of training they desire.

Only two individuals who spoke endorsed the Board's
proposals. They represented Guide Dogs for the Blind and
International Guiding Eyes.

At the conclusion of the hearing the Subcommittee announced
that it would continue to receive written testimony until
November 30, 1990. We took this opportunity to add the following
comments to the record:

Fresno, California
November 19, 1990

Dear Senator Marks:

We would like to include the following material in the
written record appended to the oral testimony given at the
November 15, 1990, public hearing regarding the proposed
legislative recommendations of the State Board of Guide Dogs for
the Blind dated June 30, 1990.

It was apparent to us at the hearing that you are quite
concerned about any attempt to restrict the rights of disabled
people who work with assistance dogs. In addition, your
legislative record on disability rights is outstanding. Your
chairing the Subcommittee is, therefore, quite appropriate, and
we applaud your leadership.

In the public hearing several issues regarding guide dog
schools in California were brought forth which were not directly
related to the recommendations of the State Board. These are very
important in evaluating the role of the Board.

One speaker noted that only twelve teams were graduated from
International Guiding Eyes, Inc., Sylmar, during an entire year.
Later in the hearing the representative of the school explained
this shortcoming as a result of the disruption caused by laying
off the director of training and the subsequent resignation of
the entire training staff. One part of the equation left
unmentioned was the expenditure of $900,000 during that same
period and the collection of $3,500,000 in public contributions.
The Board has done nothing about this misuse of funds contributed
by the public. An attempt to get the Attorney General involved
led to the response that it is up to the Board to investigate
such problems. It is rumored that the Board is finally going to
investigate, two years after the fact. IGE's representative at
the hearing mentioned a more recent figure of thirty teams
graduated last year but failed to mention the amount of money
spent by the school during this period.

Two years ago, as a result of pressure by irate consumers,
the State Board held a public hearing into the events that took
place at IGE. We were told by the chairperson of the Board that
it had no power or authority to investigate a licensed school as
long as it had one licensed trainer on its staff. Apparently a
licensed school can continue to collect funds from an
unsuspecting public as long as it has at least one licensed
trainer on staff, even if no guide dog/blind person teams are
being trained.

Some discussion of ownership of guide dogs took place at the
hearing. Present regulations promulgated by the Board permit a
school to charge its graduates who acquire ownership for
aftercare, if the school decides to do so. The representative
from Guide Dogs for the Blind, Inc., San Rafael, said his school
does not impose this charge. However, the threat of charging for
visits by the training staff is an obvious deterrent to applying
for ownership. Once again, it is the State Board which has
established these regulations.

Many of those participating in the hearing were surprised to
learn that the guide dog schools had the power to repossess a dog
graduated from their programs. The representative of Guide Dogs
for the Blind said this would only happen if the school felt it
was a matter of team safety. We can certainly document cases in
which dogs have been repossessed for reasons other than safety.
If complaints about repossession or any other activities of the
schools have been reported to the State Board, the response has
consistently been that such problems are not part of the Board's
responsibilities. Once again, the Board appears to interpret its
mission as the protection of the guide dog schools rather than
the protection of guide dog users.

During the hearing every disabled person who spoke opposed
all, or a significant part, of the Board's recommendations.
Representatives of Canine Companions for Independence and the San
Francisco SPCA Hearing Dog Program were eloquent in their
opposition to licensing and their defense of the need to retain
the recognition of privately trained assistance dogs. It seems
that these organizations have a much higher opinion of the
abilities of their disabled clientele than the guide dog schools
have toward their blind clients.

Two speakers referred to the case of Victoria Doroshenko
and
her seizure/service dog, Harley, which had been featured on "Unsolved Mysteries" the
night before the hearing. If the State Board's recommendations are translated
into legislation, Victoria
and Harley will have no public access rights in this state.
Assistance dogs that work with people who have seizures would not
be recognized as service dogs. In addition, we predict that the
Prison Pet Partnership Program developed by prisoners in the
state of Washington would not be considered by the State Board to
be substantially equivalent to a licensed California school. It
is this program which trained Harley and several other
seizure/service dogs.

Although members of the California Council of the Blind
criticized many recommendations of the Board, they concluded that
the Board should have more authority and power and should
continue to supervise guide dog schools and trainers. We think
logic requires us to come to a completely different conclusion
and call for the dismemberment of the Board since it has done
such an abominable job in developing its recommendations to the
Subcommittee. Pat Urena, secretary for the Board, stated at the
hearing that the Board spent only $25,000 for its nine public
hearings and the preparation of the draft and final document. We
believe this is a very low figure. But whatever the actual costs
to the taxpayers, it has been a waste of our money. Continuation
of the Board would be a further waste of our money in a time of
budgetary crises and cuts in the state budget for worthwhile
programs.

Sincerely,
Ed and Toni Eames

The fundamental question still remains, "Is the Board's bark
worse than its bite?" If the Board were a dog, it would be
characterized as aggressive and potentially dangerous. The humane
way to handle such a dog would be to euthanize it before it goes
on a destructive rampage. That is exactly what we plan to do for
the California State Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind!

NOT EVERYBODY'S STUPID:
OR THE AIRLINES AND THE FAA ARE STILL IN COLLUSION

From the Editor: The following column appeared in the Seattle
Times for October 8, 1990. Written by Shelby Gilje, it
demonstrates that at least a few people still have a modicum of
sanity. Here it is:

"Hi, Fly Safely. Can you book me on a
flight to Adventure,
Iowa, tomorrow?"

"Yes, Ma'am. And will
that be coach or first-class?"

"Are
you kidding? I'm a consumer columnist. Make that coach. And I'd like
a window seat."

"OK. What time
did you want to leave? We have an 8:15 or
9:45 a.m. flight."

"Ummm, how about 9:45
tomorrow? My credit card number is..."

"Wait
just a moment, please. Our computers are tied up. Besides I need more
information.

"Are you traveling with
small children?"

"No. Hey,
could you just make my reservation? I've got to get off this
phone. I've got a meeting to attend and people are
waiting."

"In a minute. Can you tell me,
are you 15 years of age, or
older?"

"Older. Definitely older."

"And
how's your health?"

"Is this a health
spa or an airline?"

"Well, sorry,
ma'am, but we need to know if you are...
well... strong."

"Strong? Why on earth..."

"There's
this new Federal Aviation Administration rule about who sits next to the
emergency exit, and I've got just a few more
questions...."

"Oh, I know what you're
talking about. I call it the new `Captain Exit' rule. The one that went into
effect last Friday.
The passengers who will assist the flight crew in case of
emergency."

"Thanks for being so understanding,
ma'am. Now, would you
say you are elderly or infirm or obese?"

"Are
there other choices?"

"Please be patient,
ma'am. I'm nearly ready to reserve you a
seat."

"But I thought sitting in the `Captain
Exit' seats was
purely voluntary."

"Well, it is. You don't
have to sit there, but, as it happens on the particular flight you want,
that's the last window
seat left. And no one else qualifies on this trip. You can't sit
there if you are under 15 years of age, traveling with small
children, disabled, or obese. And you have to be able to read,
speak, and understand English. If you qualify to sit in the exit
row seat, I can book you."

"Well, luckily,
I don't have any physical disabilities,
except I can't see without my glasses."

"Wear
your glasses."

"It's always debatable
whether reporters can speak and read
English. And what's this about obesity?"

"You'll have
to answer the same questions at the other airlines, ma'am. Or that is, someone
will look you over at the
ticketing desk and again on board the aircraft to see if you
qualify for that seat. This is all for your safety, you know.
That's why the FAA implemented the rule, to save lives and speed
up evacuations during an emergency."

"I
know some blind people who can find their way around in the dark better than
I can, because that's what they do every
day. I don't think you and the FAA should be so quick to dismiss
their abilities."

"Sorry, ma'am. Rules
are rules."

"OK, I get the message.
Is there any special training to sit in the `Captain Exit' seat? It sounds
like it's pretty
important."

"Don't worry about a thing.
You'll get a brochure when you board the aircraft that will explain your
duties, should there be
an emergency."

"Is that it? A brochure?
No training class?"

"That's it. You
probably won't have to do anything special."

"Would
I be credited with some added mileage for my special
duties?"

"Nope. We're to treat you just
like any other passenger."

"But you're
not if you're checking my weight, my abilities to move around... my...
Tell me, can I still sleep aboard the
aircraft, or will I be on duty for the whole flight?"

"Oh
no, it will be just the usual kind of flight. You can
doze if you like."

"But what good is a
dozing `Captain Exit'? What if there's an emergency and I'm asleep at the
exit?"

"Well, don't worry. If the
flight crew needs assistance, you and the others in the exit rows will
be the first to know."

"I suppose
there's a ban on alcoholic drinks being served to those who sit in
the `Captain Exit' seats? Flight crews are
expected to abstain from alcoholic beverages and so should the
assistants, don't you think?"

"No, as
I said, ma'am, you'll be treated like any other passenger. You may order
a beverage. But don't overdo, or the
crew will stop serving you."

"I'll tell
you what. Let's make a deal. You choose one of your own to sit in the `Captain
Exit' seat. That way you'll have
someone who is strong, say, as big as a tackle for the Seahawks,
with perfect vision, no warts, not too fat--whatever that is--and
perfect in every way.

AIRLINE SAFETY: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN SEE FIRE ON THE
WING?

by Kenneth Jernigan

For at least a half dozen years a major argument has been
raging about whether blind persons should be barred from sitting
in the emergency exit rows on commercial airplanes. The National
Federation of the Blind has led the fight for what it calls
nondiscrimination, and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)
and the nation's airlines have led the fight for what they call
safety. The Federation has repeatedly said that if a safety
question is really involved, it does not want blind persons to be
allowed to sit in the exit rows; and the FAA and the airlines
have just as vehemently said that if a safety question is not
involved, they do not want to discriminate against the blind. So
what is the truth, and what are the facts? Is it safety, or is it
discrimination?

To begin with, some ground rules of reason have to be
established. It is not enough to show that a given blind person
in a given instance may block an exit or pose a safety hazard.
Blind persons are just as diverse and variable in their behavior
and characteristics as sighted persons are. If the blind as a
class are to be barred from sitting in the exit rows, it must be
shown that they are not being held to a higher standard of
conduct than others in the general population and that there is
something about blindness that makes the blind less capable of
dealing with an emergency than the ordinary passenger who might
be seated in an exit row.

The Federation has repeatedly pointed out that if safety is
the only consideration, no one at all will fly. But just as in
using automobiles, there are tradeoffs, and we are willing to
accept a certain amount of risk in order to go where we need to
go and get our business done. In fact, not traveling at all would
also involve safety hazards and carry with it a price tag, one
that would be too heavy to bear. So we choose to travel, knowing
that it involves a certain amount of risk.

The next fallback position for maximum safety in air travel
would probably be to place trained, healthy airline officials in
the exit rows, but the airlines say this is unacceptable because
of the lost revenue from those seats and the cost of hiring the
extra personnel. So it is not just that we are willing to accept
a certain amount of risk to have air travel but that we are
willing to accept additional risks to improve the economics of
it.

If we go to the next fallback position for maximum safety,
it would probably be to widen the exit row aisles and have no one
sit in them at all. This would at least save the cost of training
and hiring extra personnel to be there--though still depriving
the airlines of the revenue which they now make from the paying
passengers who sit in the exit rows. Again the airlines are not
willing--and again for the same reason, economics. As they point
out, they have enough trouble making their business pay even as
it is.

Then perhaps the airlines could at least refuse to sell
liquor to people who sit in the exit rows or ask for volunteers
to sit there who do not intend to drink anyway. They decline to
do the first of these things because of lost revenue and the
second because of concern about frightening the passengers by
reminding them of possible crashes or in-flight emergencies.

Of course, none of this makes the case for permitting blind
persons to sit in the exit rows, but it does demonstrate that
safety is not the only (or perhaps even the prime) factor being
considered. Before coming to the main argument advanced by the
airlines, we must dispose of a couple of matters which are
sometimes used to cloud the discussion. Regarding the liquor
issue, the airlines say that they will not serve excess alcohol
to any passenger, let alone those who sit in exit rows.
Regardless of rules and protestations to the contrary, this is
simply not the truth, and all you have to do to prove it is to
ride on any commercial airline and watch the liquor flow and, at
the end of the flight, the inebriated stagger down the aisle.

Besides which, how much is too much? We know that alcohol
(even two drinks) takes the edge off of judgment and impairs
function. Is drunk driving worse than drunk flying? For that
matter, if safety is really uppermost in the thinking of the
airlines, is it sensible to serve liquor on planes at all? Yet,
in actual dollar volume the airlines and airports are probably
the nation's biggest bartender.

On another topic,
the airlines and some of the press often introduce irrelevant comments about
how admirable it is that the
blind "want to try to be independent" but that the exit row is
simply not the place to demonstrate it. This is pure nonsense.
Blind persons are either a greater hazard than others seated in
exit rows or they aren't. If they are, they shouldn't sit there--
and any blind person with any sense wouldn't want to. If they
aren't a greater safety hazard than others, then prohibiting them
from sitting in the exit row is discrimination--and in either
case, admiration and emotion have nothing to do with it.

So where does this leave us? Never in the history of
commercial aviation has there been a single recorded instance of
a blind person's blocking an exit, slowing an evacuation, or
contributing to an accident. But there are recorded instances to
the contrary. At night or when the cabin has been filled with
smoke, blind persons have on more than one occasion found the
exits and led others out.

Nevertheless, say the airlines, there is a countering
situation. What if there is a fire just outside of the exit and
the blind person (unable to see it) opens the exit and triggers
disaster? This (even though it has never happened) is, of course,
theoretically possible--but it is hard to see how such a
hypothetical scenario can outweigh the reality of what has
actually occurred--the effective performance of blind passengers
in dark or smoke-filled cabins, leading others to safety.

There
are also other considerations. How many so-called normal, healthy passengers
have undetectable (or hidden)
disabilities (bad backs, heart conditions, emotional instability,
or the like) which would make it totally inappropriate for them
to sit in the exit row? But we always come back to the single
issue of fire on the wing or outside the exit. The sighted can
see it, and the blind can't--and this, say the airlines, is
totally controlling and makes everything else irrelevant. The
sighted, they tell us, would be able to function--and would do
it. The blind couldn't and wouldn't. To the Federation's argument
that the exit row issue is as important and all-encompassing as
the refusal by Rosa Parks to sit at the back of the bus (with all
that was implied), the airlines tend to answer with a single
scare word--"fire!"

So let us deal with that word. Let us bring fire out of the
realm of ghosts in the night and nameless terror and deal with
it. What do sighted people actually do when they see fire on the
wing? Not what they are thought to do or what they are believed
to do, but what do they really do--not in simulations or
textbooks, but in real life? What would a blind person (one who
did not have the sight of fire to spur his imagination and drive
him to frenzy) do? We do not have the answer to both parts of the
question, but we do have a definitive answer to half of it. We
know what sighted people do--or certainly what they did do in at
least one real life situation. As you read the following article
by Neil Centennial of the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel,
reprinted in the September 11, 1990, Seattle Times, ask yourself
some questions. Are blind persons who fly less suited than others
to sit in exit rows? Are the blind being held to a higher
standard than others? In the situation described in the following
article, do you think a blind person similarly situated would
have been more or less likely to panic than the sighted who were
there and participated in the debacle? Remember that we are not
talking about just one sighted person, or even a handful. We are
talking about dozens and dozens, a whole planeful. Here is the
article. Judge for yourself:

Fire! Panic on Runway in a Moving Jet

The first shout of "fire" came from a passenger
sitting by
the right wing of the Boeing 727, shortly after TWA Flight 194
from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., touched down at New York's LaGuardia
Airport.

Other passengers quickly joined in, yelling and pointing to
flames shooting from an auxiliary power unit on the wing as the
aircraft taxied toward the terminal Sunday night.

What happened next caught everyone by surprise: Panicked
passengers flung open emergency exits and bailed out. A few
jumped from a wing onto the tarmac while the plane was moving,
said Passenger Lauren Rubel, 44, a New Yorker with a home west of
Boca Raton, Fla.

The rest of the 134 people on board slid down chutes after
the jetliner stopped on the taxiway, airline officials said.

"People were shouting `Get out of the plane--use the
emergency exits,'" Rubel said.

"Everybody started to scream. Everybody went crazy," said
another passenger, John Fontana, 60, who divides his time between
his Brooklyn home and his Hallandale, Fla., condominium.

At least three passengers were injured--none seriously--in
the emergency evacuation that occurred shortly after the jet
landed, airline and Federal Aviation Administration officials
said.

TWA officials called the evacuation an overreaction on the
part of passengers. The flames came from an auxiliary power unit
that backfired, they said.

As the plane was landing, the control tower told the pilot
there was a fire on the wing, and he shut down the power unit,
FAA officials said. The flight crew did not order passengers to
go out the emergency exits, the officials said.

"The passengers thought there was a fire, and they
overreacted," TWA spokesman Jim Faulkner said from St. Louis.
"The captain did try to communicate to them it was not a fire,
but they had already headed for the doors."

FAA officials said it was highly unusual for passengers to
evacuate while a plane is moving and without a flight crew
instructing them to do so.

FAA investigators were checking the jet's auxiliary power
unit, which supplies electricity for air conditioning, lights,
and other onboard systems when the engine is shut off. The team
also will interview the flight crew, FAA spokesman Duncan Pardue
said.

"I can't remember an episode like this, frankly, where
passenger panic brought about an evacuation" instead of
evacuation being ordered by a crew member, he said.

Amid the initial confusion, passengers looking for flight
attendants to help them could not find any, said Rubel, a retired
shoe store owner who jumped from the left wing with her husband,
Robert, 55, after the plane had stopped.

"We were shouting, `What should we do?'" she said.
Pardue said flight attendants are "trained to be there
instructing the (passengers) on how to get off." He said the FAA
was investigating "why all this happened, why the flight
attendants couldn't contain the passengers."

Passengers
said the captain left the cockpit briefly to tell passengers to sit down
and not to panic. But "the people didn't
give a damn anymore," Fontana said.

Just after
the plane landed, Robert Rubel said, he heard a
shout of fire then saw a "big ball or flash of red outside the
plane." A young woman sitting in a row in front of him bolted out
of her seat, opened an emergency door, and darted onto the wing,
he said.

A wave of "organized panic" then
took over as other
passengers left the plane, most of them sliding down four
emergency chutes that were deployed, Lauren Rubel said.

Before leaping from the wing, Lauren Rubel said she tossed
her dog, a Maltese named Tiger, into her husband's arms. Then
she, too, jumped into his arms.

Immediately after the evacuation, two passengers were taken
to Elmhurst General Hospital, one with leg pains and one with a
possible heart problem, and one was taken to North Shore
University Hospital in Manhasset, Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey police said.

******************************

If you or a friend would like to remember the National
Federation of the Blind in your will, you can do so by employing
the following language:

"I give, devise, and bequeath unto National Federation of
the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, a
District of Columbia nonprofit corporation, the sum of $_____ (or
"_____ percent of my net estate" or "The following stocks and
bonds: _____") to be used for its worthy purposes on behalf of
blind persons."

******************************

REFLECTIONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE

by Robert J. Leblond

From the Associate Editor: Robert and Connie Leblond are
leaders in the National Federation of the Blind of Maine. They
are also conscientious, caring parents of two blind youngsters.
They have been instrumental in founding and guiding the New
England Parents and Educators Division of the National Federation
of the Blind. They understand that involvement with the NFB at
every level of their lives is the surest way they can help their
youngsters to grow into well-adjusted, productive adults.
Recently they had an experience which pointed up the differences
between the Federation's outlook on the world and that of most of
the rest of the field of Special Education and Exceptional
Children. This is the way Bob Leblond tells the story:

I am the father of two blind children--the experts would
stipulate that they are only visually impaired. My daughter Hope
is a quick-witted 13-year-old, sometimes wonderfully refreshing,
sometimes totally unnerving; but that's how 13-year-old girls are
supposed to be, isn't it? My son Seth is 8 going on 25--highly
interested in everything and looking forward to becoming
president of the National Federation of the Blind in 30 years or
so. Both are fluent Braille readers and fine cane travelers--just
regular kids who can't see too well. Both are mainstreamed in
regular classrooms and cope very well indeed. As their parents,
we of course immerse them in NFB philosophy on a regular basis.

Recently
Seth was nominated for and won a "Yes I Can" award
from the Foundation for Exceptional Children. Seth's itinerant
teacher called us one day in December, 1989, asking us whether we
minded if she nominated him for an award in the category of
academics. Seth, who scores in the top 1% of his age group in
reading, math, and science and outstrips all his peers in
computer use, was a prime candidate. Although we dislike the
clinical term "exceptional child," we didn't want to stop the
teacher from nominating him and perhaps keep him from receiving
the recognition to which he was entitled.

My wife Connie and I were recently elected to be secretary
and president respectively of the New England Parents and
Educators Division of the National Federation of the Blind.
Shortly after receiving word that Seth had won the Council for
Exceptional Children award, a reporter from the local newspaper
called to ask if he could do a story about our family and the new
division. During the interview Seth's award was mentioned along
with the fact that we were unable to pay for a trip to Toronto,
where the awards were being presented as part of the Council's
annual convention.

Shortly thereafter, we received a call from Angela Faherty,
our local special education director, with whom we have always
enjoyed a productive working relationship. She informed us that
she had seen the article and would try to put together some funds
from various sources so that we could travel to Toronto, where
Seth could receive his award. Funds were made available through
the local chapter of the Council for Exceptional Children, the
State Department of Special Education, and the local school.

We were going to Toronto. Hope and Seth were excited, and
Connie was the typical proud mother. Dad has an acute and
exquisite fear of flying but faced the trip stoically.

We were informed that the night before the awards ceremony
there would be a special reception in honor of the recipients,
who ranged in age from 7 to 20, with the majority between 10 and
16. Speculation abounded--would it be a pizza party? Perhaps the
ever popular hamburger would be served. Much to the children's
dismay it was a wine-and-cheese reception (which the adults
enjoyed very much). If this was to honor the children, however,
it missed the mark, for I personally have never met a 10-year-old
wine connoisseur.

Seth weathered it fairly well,
however, and endured about an hour and a half of picture-taking and praising
of various CEC
officers. At that point he confidentially whispered to me, "Let's
get out of here; I need some beef!" Being in no position to
argue, we took our leave as gracefully as we could.

Back
at our hotel (over a round of much-appreciated burgers), we discussed the
reception. Both Connie and I had
encountered a gentleman who introduced himself as the President
of the Maine chapter of CEC. I mentioned to him that I was
President of the New England Parents Division and discussed some
of our aims, along with some of the problems associated with
creating a division of such size and scope. He seemed very
impressed. Connie told me that she had met this person also; and,
when she informed him that she was the vice president of the NFB
of Maine as well as an officer in the Parents Division, he patted
her on the back and replied, "That's nice." Worrying that the
distinction he made in his behavior toward a blind mother and a
sighted father was an indication of the attitudes we would
encounter at the ceremony the following day, we retired for the
night.

Friday came and with it the moment we had
all been waiting for--the presentation ceremony. Although everyone had been
asked
to report to the convention center by 9:00 a.m., it was 10:30
before things got underway. Interviews with the winners were
conducted, and Seth had some answers to questions that had
clearly not been anticipated. When asked what this award meant to
him, Seth said that it meant that he had worked hard and well.
When asked what he wanted to do when he grew up, he replied
without hesitation, "I'm keeping my options open." Both Hope and
Seth have always been told that they can aspire to anything and
will probably succeed if they don't mind working hard toward
their goals. We never realized how many children don't get that
kind of reinforcement.

So the official ceremony
began. A famous folk singer performed for about half an hour. The songs he
chose were full of
the usual negative sentimentalism: "We all have our burdens to
bear," "My brother's slow, can't learn too well, but we love
him," etc., etc., etc.

After 10 minutes we were bored; after 30, disgusted. In
looking around the room to see if anyone else was feeling this
way, I saw people with tears streaming from their eyes, hands
trembling with emotion. Then I knew that we had crossed to the
other side of the fence. These people, you see, were for the most
part special educators of some sort--typical professionals with
low expectations and poor attitudes. I knew then that these
awards were given, not so much to honor the children, but to make
the professionals feel good. This idea had not previously
occurred to me because of my involvement with the Federation.

After the tear-jerking songster came the presentation. Seth
was to be the eighteenth of thirty-five to ascend the stage and
claim his trophy. Seth wields a mean cane and travels with no
more difficulty than your average eight-year-old. This has always
been expected of him and Hope, and we all take independent travel
for granted. Wrong again! About a dozen winners were blind people
ranging in age from 8 to 20, but of them all only Seth could move
around without a sighted guide.

The Council for Exceptional Children representatives,
however, had obviously not met too many independent cane
travelers because, rather than describing to Seth or showing him
his place in line, he was taken by the scruff of the neck and
moved into position. This didn't go over big with either Seth or
me, but with difficulty we both refrained from comment. Seth's
turn came to receive his award, and his academic achievements
were touted. The fact that he was a national winner in the
Braille Readers are Leaders contest last year was also mentioned.
The presenter then announced him as a seven-year-old. Seth
figures that it's taken him a long time to get to be eight, and
the mistake was nearly a fatal one for the presenter.
Fortunately, Seth is basically non-violent, but there have been
exceptions.

Returning to our hotel, we had a swim and prepared for our
flight back to the States. Seth was happy about the award but
felt sad for all of the blind people who couldn't get around by
themselves. All four of us discussed this and came to the
consensus that the Council for Exceptional Children people are
well-meaning and just need more exposure to the kinds of
attitudes that we and the National Federation of the Blind
project.

But in the meantime how do you retain a hold on your sanity
in a world full of sighted professionals?

CALIFORNIA REHAB CUTS A DEAL WITH KRUM AND COMPANY

Monitor readers will remember that on September 1, 1989, the
California State Police entered the offices of the Department of
Rehabilitation and escorted four employees off state property
(including Roger Krum, the head of the Business Enterprise
Program) for the duration of an investigation, which the police
began immediately. (See the Braille Monitor issue for January,
1989.) This was not the first time that the California Business
Enterprise Program (BEP) had been the subject of intensive
investigation, and clearly it will not be the last. Millions keep
disappearing from the Vendors' Trust Fund, and significant
amounts of equipment seem to vanish without a trace from the
program's inventory. Nothing significant was done about these
problems the last time they turned up, in the late seventies, and
it is now clear that the Department of Rehabilitation has no
interest in putting its house in order this time around either.
The District Attorney is still investigating the events that led
up to the September 1 sweep, but in early October, 1990, the
Department of Rehabilitation announced that in return for quiet
resignations from the BEP, it would reverse the firings of the
four, thus enabling them to seek other state employment.

Needless to say, the blind of California were outraged, but
the views of blind people seem never to have been of much concern
to the Department of Rehabilitation. No one is talking, but the
only plausible explanation for its decision to conclude its
internal examination of the problems by letting the four fired
officials resign is that some sort of deal was struck. The result
of all this is that everything will be swept under the rug until
the mess oozes out again at some future date. After all, only the
blind will suffer--the blind and the recipients of services in
whatever offices the four find new work. The Sacramento Union
published the report of the Department's actions on Thursday,
October 4, 1990. The story was written by Trinda Pasquet. Here it
is:

Fired State Employees Allowed to Resign

Four employees fired in March by the Department of
Rehabilitation after $1.6 million in equipment disappeared from a
business program for the blind have been allowed to resign
instead, state officials confirmed Wednesday.

In exchange for the resignations, all adverse personnel
actions were withdrawn, and the employees were given
reinstatement rights to reapply for state jobs without losing
seniority.

In fact, one of the employees, Joseph Edward Parilo, a
business enterprise consultant for the Department of
Rehabilitation for 17 years, has already found another job with
the Public Employees Retirement System. He could not be reached
for comment.

That settlement has outraged the blind community, says
Sharon Gold, president of the National Federation of the Blind of
California.

"This is the second time and the second administration that
got its hand slapped for apparently squandering or mismanaging
equipment purchased by the blind vendors themselves," Gold said.

In 1976 $1.2 million in equipment could not be located. And
last fall auditors within the Department of Rehabilitation
determined that another $1.6 million in equipment was missing.

The Business Enterprise Program--which grossed $49 million
last year--provides training and helps set up blind entrepreneurs
in vending stands and food service operations in public and
private buildings.

Sacramento Deputy District Attorney Ana Bravo said she is
still investigating the case, trying to determine whether to file
charges against some or all the employees.

Members
of the California Vendors Policy Committee are planning to file a grievance
objecting to the department's "lenience," according to the group's
chairman, blind vendor John
Friesen.

Besides Parilo, employees initially fired and who were
allowed later to resign are Roger Krum, chief of the Business
Enterprise Program and a 24-year department employee; James C.
Flint, Krum's assistant administrator and 26-year department
employee who has not retired; and Anthony Budmark, a management
service technician with 15 years.

Another employee, Howard Mackey, was suspended for 30 days.
The department's director, gubernatorial appointee Hao Q. Lam,
was transferred to a lateral position in the state's Health and
Welfare Agency.

A source said at least one of the men also received back pay
from the time he was suspended last fall through the time of the
settlement this summer.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Portrait of Jerry Vaughn.]

FEDERATIONIST WANTS MINORITY BUSINESS EQUALITY

From the Editor: Jerry Vaughn is blind. He is
also a
Federationist. He is in business for himself as a gravel
contractor, and he now finds himself being squeezed between major
contractors who are wealthy and small and/or new contractors who
qualify for minority business preference. Under date of September
19, 1990, an article entitled "Blind Troy Businessman Does Not
Qualify for Benefits" appeared in the Union City, Tennessee,
Daily Messenger. Here is what it says:

NASHVILLE (UPI)--A legally blind Troy man is fighting for
the same advantages in business the state now gives women,
blacks, and other ethnic minorities.

Jerry Vaughn,
a sand and gravel contractor, said he is nearly bankrupt because his blindness
does not qualify him as "socially and economically disadvantaged."

Vaughn said he has to meet both criteria to be part of the
state's Minority Business Enterprise program and receive
preferential treatment in bidding for state jobs. Also, he said,
he cannot receive technical and financial assistance available to
minorities.

State Rep. Phillip Pinion, D-Union City, asked Attorney
General Charles Burson whether a legally blind person qualifies
as a Minority Business Enterprise. The answer, released Monday,
was no.

Burson said blindness does not qualify unless the individual
also has been discriminated against because of race, religion,
ethnic background, or sex.

"How much more minority can you be than blind?" Pinion
said. Vaughn contends he is being discriminated against because he
is a white male.

"Handicapped does not apply," he said. "I'm excluded." Pinion
said he may sponsor legislation that would make handicapped Tennesseans eligible
for the state's Minority
Business Enterprise program.

"I'm going to look into it and try to find out what criteria
have to be met," he said. "I feel like this is definitely
discrimination. He could be sitting on his duff doing nothing,
but he's out trying to make a living and it seems like the
bureaucracy literally stops him."

Vaughn said he is not able to compete with wealthy prime
contractors because of his handicap, but he also cannot receive
the advantages given by the state to minorities.

"I don't have the money now to even fight," Vaughn said.
"I'm at the point of bankruptcy or foreclosure."

Vaughn said he is not opposed to giving special
considerations to blacks, women, and other minorities.

"Those people need help, but I do too" he said. "I
can't
participate. I haven't had the technical and financial assistance
I'm entitled to due to the white male factor. White women are
given preferential treatment. What about us blind persons?

WE CAN COUNT ON EACH OTHER

by Marc Maurer

One of the most extraordinary characteristics of our
Federation family is the way in which we are prepared to drop
everything in our busy lives and rush to answer the call of duty
or help each other. The weekend of December 8, 1990, turned out
to be one more notable example of this truth. All of us had plans
that day--social engagements, preparations for the holidays,
studying for exams. But the National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) was
conducting a propaganda session in Chicago, attacking the
Federation, and the blind of the nation were needed to
demonstrate our continuing outrage at the charade NAC is
perpetrating against us in the name of accreditation. (See the
lead article in this issue.)

Mid-week before the NAC dinner, word went out that the blind
of the nation were coming to Chicago to stand and be counted.
Hotel arrangements were made, and signs and buttons were
produced. But most of all, people--lots of them--began
rearranging their lives for the weekend.

It seems to me that half of the Federation chapters in the
Midwest had planned Christmas parties for that Saturday evening,
and several state boards had meetings scheduled, including New
Mexico, which moved its entire board to Chicago and combined the
conduct of state business with the meeting of the NFB Committee
on Standards and Accreditation, whose activities usually consist
of brisk walking, singing, and alerting the public to what NAC is
doing to harm the blind. Our Chicago chapter's Christmas party
and annual auction were scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and
those events took place as planned. Then chapter members
adjourned to the Bismarck Hotel to join their colleagues and
friends from around the state and nation.

It is impossible to catalogue all the personal sacrifices
that were made to support this urgently important effort. Candice
Peterson, whose mother Bonnie is the President of the National
Federation of the Blind of Wisconsin, had her tenth birthday
party without her mom, and I overheard one Federationist remark
that Christmas shopping would be simplified this year because
this trip was it for him and his wife.

But I think that the one who suffered most during the
weekend was Steve Benson, President of the National Federation of
the Blind of Illinois. He was not among us because on Friday,
December 7, he underwent abdominal surgery. A repair was made in
the bladder wall, and he is now firmly on the mend. But when I
visited Steve in the hospital early Saturday afternoon, he was
fretting because he could not be with us, taking his stand and
pulling his share of the load. I assured him that there were
plenty of hands to do the work, and his part was to get himself
back on his feet.

Our opponents are often frustrated
by our discipline and focus. It is infrequent today to find dedication to
a cause by a
large group of people who are knit together with the love that
binds the National Federation of the Blind. Our opponents try to
explain it away by saying that we are "mindless parrots," repeating
what we've been told, as Grant Mack called us at a meeting in Columbus, Ohio.
The NAC crowd can attempt to dismiss
our unity by willfully misunderstanding and misinterpreting it,
but there is no explaining away the love and camaraderie we share
in this movement. Like faith, such love and dedication can move
mountains; they can even remove NAC.

[PHOTO: Portrait of James Gashel. CAPTION: James Gashel, Director
of Governmental Affairs of the NFB.]

SOCIAL SECURITY, SSI, AND MEDICARE FACTS FOR 1991

by James Gashel

The beginning of each year brings with it annual adjustments
in Social Security programs. The changes include new tax rates,
higher exempt earnings amounts, Social Security and SSI
cost-of-living increases, and changes in deductible and co-
insurance requirements under Medicare. Here are the new facts for
1991:

FICA (Social Security) Tax Rate: The tax rate for employees
and their employers during 1990 became 7.65% and will remain at
the same rate for 1991. This rate includes payments to the Old
Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Trust Fund of 6.2% and
an additional 1.45% payment to the Health Insurance Trust Fund.
The maximum FICA amount to be paid by an employee during 1991 is
$5,123.30, up from $3,855.60 during 1990. The largest amount of
this increase results from a higher ceiling on taxable earnings
used to support the Health Insurance Trust Fund. Self-employed
persons will pay a Social Security tax of 15.3% during 1991, and
their maximum Social Security contribution will be $8,170.20.
Self-employed persons who earn more than $53,400.00 will also pay
an additional amount into the Health Insurance Trust Fund.

Ceiling on Earnings Subject to Tax: The taxable earnings
ceiling for Social Security purposes was $51,300.00 for 1990.
Earnings above this amount were not subject to FICA
contributions. Beginning in 1991 there is a new higher ceiling on
earnings that are taxable for purposes of Medicare. The ceiling
on earnings subject to tax to support the Social Security trust
funds will be $53,400.00 during 1991. The new Medicare ceiling
will be $125,000.00. Persons who earn more than $53,400.00 will
continue to make a 1.45% tax contribution to the Health Insurance
Trust Fund up to the new higher ceiling of $125,000.00.

Quarters of Coverage: Eligibility for retirement, survivors,
and disability insurance benefits is based in large part on the
number of quarters of coverage earned by any individual during
periods of work. Anyone may earn up to four quarters of coverage
during a single year. During 1990 a Social Security quarter of
coverage was credited for earnings of $520.00 in any calendar
quarter. Anyone who earned $2,080.00 for the year (regardless of
when the earnings occurred during the year) was given four
quarters of coverage. In 1991 a Social Security quarter of
coverage will be credited for earnings of $540.00 during a
calendar quarter. Four quarters can be earned with annual
earnings of $2,160.00.

Exempt Earnings: The earnings
exemption for blind people receiving Social Security Disability Insurance
(SSDI) benefits is
the same as the exempt amount for individuals age 65 through 69
who receive Social Security retirement benefits. The monthly
exempt amount in 1990 was $780.00 of gross earned income. During
1991 the exempt amount will be $810.00. Technically, this
exemption is referred to as an amount of monthly gross earnings
which does not show "substantial gainful activity." Earnings of
$810.00 or more per month before taxes for a blind SSDI
beneficiary in 1991 will show substantial gainful activity after
subtracting any unearned (or subsidy) income and applying any
deductions for impairment-related work expenses.

Social Security Benefit Amounts for 1991: All Social
Security benefits, including retirement, survivors', disability,
and dependents' benefits are increased by 5.4% beginning January,
1991. The exact dollar increase for any individual will depend
upon the amount being paid.

Medicare Deductibles
and Co-insurance: Medicare Part A coverage provides hospital insurance to
most Social Security
beneficiaries. The co-insurance payment is the charge that the
hospital makes to a Medicare beneficiary for any hospital stay.
Medicare then pays the hospital charges above the beneficiary's
co-insurance amount. The Part A co-insurance amount for hospital
stays from sixty-one through ninety days is $157.00 a day, up
from $148.00 a day in 1990. Each Medicare beneficiary has sixty "reserve days" for
hospital stays longer than ninety days. The co-insurance amount to be paid during
each reserve day is
$314.00, up from $296.00 in 1990.

The Medicare Part B (medical insurance) deductible will
increase from $75.00 in 1990 to $100.00 in 1991. This is not an
annual deductible amount. A new benefit period can begin sixty
days after discharge from a hospital or skilled nursing facility.
The Medicare Part B basic monthly premium rate will increase from
$28.60 charged to each beneficiary during 1990 to $29.90 per
month during 1991.

RECIPES

From the Associate Editor: The bitingly cold weather of the
winter season always makes my thoughts turn to bread-baking. When
it comes to the household arts, I am frankly a coward. For
example, I enjoy knitting more than sewing because you don't have
to cut, and even if you do break the yarn, you can tie it
together again with no one the wiser. Sewing, on the other hand,
requires one to commit irrevocably to one size, one arrangement
of the pattern on the material and then--most unalterable act of
all--to cut.

Bread-baking is like knitting; you can always start over--as
long as you haven't killed the yeast. People are impressed with a
well-baked loaf out of all proportion to the skill required to
produce it, and nothing is more comforting on a blustery day than
a slice from a warm loaf with butter melting into the texture of
the bread.

A few hours of research and experimentation are well worth
the investment when you find that, like knitting sweaters, you
have a skill that everyone appreciates benefiting from. People
generally think that baking bread is complicated and time-
consuming. It does not actually take very long at any one time,
but you must choose a day when you can be in the kitchen
occasionally during a several-hour period. Bread is patient for
the most part. If you let it rise so far that the loaf falls
again, you can simply reform it. As long as the yeast has food to
grow on, it will keep multiplying and producing the carbon
dioxide bubbles that make the loaf rise. As I say, the only
absolute rule is don't kill the yeast with hot water or an oven
that is too hot during the rising.

There are loaves for every occasion and taste. One of my
favorites is tiny loaves served with sandwich-makings for a
special lunch. Each guest can slice an individual loaf hot from
the oven and create several small sandwiches to warm his or her
own heart. Here are several recipes from Federationists who like
to bake and who find bread pleasing. See what you think.

NUT TREE LOAF
by Barbara Pierce

This recipe makes four individual loaves and can be thrown
together in a food processor, a mixer with a bread hook, or a
bowl and wooden spoon. The last method requires old-fashioned
kneading but is a great way of constructively releasing pent up
frustrations or other unhealthy emotions. Once you have the hang
of bread-baking, experiment with different kinds of flour,
sweeteners, or flavorings.

Method: In a warm bowl combine water, yeast, sugar, and
salt. Stir to dissolve the dry ingredients. Add half the flour
and stir with a wooden spoon. Adding the rest of the flour will
be harder work, and eventually you will want to turn the contents
of the bowl out onto a floured board for kneading. Bread is ready
to rise when it is satiny and elastic and does not need more
flour for easy handling. (If cracks or folds begin to appear in
the dough, you have added too much flour. Just sprinkle a few
drops of water over the dough and knead it in well without
additional flour.)

Place the dough in a well-buttered bowl, butter the top of
the dough generously, cover the bowl with a towel, and allow to
rise in a warm spot (about 85 degrees if you can manage it) until
it doubles in bulk. Knead the dough briefly to release the air
and allow the bread to rest for 10 minutes or so. Divide it into
four equal pieces and roll each into a small rectangle. Be sure
that there are no air pockets in the dough at this point; they
will spoil the texture of the finished product. Roll up each
rectangle to form a small loaf. Pinch the ends and bottom to
seal. Place each loaf in a buttered or oiled foil bread pan
measuring 3 inches by 5 and butter its top. Allow to triple in
bulk in a warm place. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.
Bread is done when it sounds hollow when gently tapped. Tip the
loaves out onto cooling racks to cool. If you see that it is not
done on the bottom, pop them back into the oven for a few more
minutes. It is not necessary to return the loaves to the pans at
this stage of baking. Enjoy lunch.

CARAMEL RING-A-ROUND OR MONKEY BREAD
by Tony Sohl

Tony Sohl is an active member of the Tempe-Mesa Chapter of
the National Federation of the Blind of Arizona. His mother is
Ruth Swenson, President of the NFB of Arizona. Tony frequently
contributes recipes to these pages. He demonstrates with energy
and style the truth that young men can enjoy cooking and do well
at it.

Method: Mix brown sugar, water and margarine in a saucepan.
Cook over very low heat until melted. Pour into a large Pyrex
bowl. Add biscuit pieces and walnuts. Stir to coat each small
biscuit. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until done.
Top will be dry to the touch.

BRAN WHOLE WHEAT BREAD
by Orna Weinroth

Orna Weinroth and her husband Robert Greenberg, a 1986 NFB
scholarship winner, have just returned to New Haven, Connecticut,
from a year of linguistic research in Eastern Europe for Robert's
doctoral dissertation. Orna is a very busy woman and provides
proof for my contention that everyone who wants to can find time
to bake bread.

Method: Proof the yeast by dissolving it in a little of the
warm water. Let it stand in a warm place until bubbles begin to
form. This takes five to ten minutes and demonstrates that the
yeast is alive and active. Be sure that the water is just
comfortably warm to the touch (about 110 degrees). If you use
water that is actually hot, you will kill the yeast, and the
bread will not rise. If this does happen, just dissolve another
package of yeast in a little more water and knead it into the
bread at any point before baking. This will rescue the entire
project.

Combine the wet ingredients in a large bowl, then add the
dry ones. Stir until the mixture forms a soft dough. Turn it out
onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and
elastic and does not need more flour in order for you to handle
it easily. This will take about ten minutes of vigorous kneading.
Place in an oiled bowl, turning the dough over once to coat the
top. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a towel and allow the
dough to rise to about double in bulk in a warm place, 1-1/2
hours. Punch the dough down, letting the air escape. Allow the
dough to rest for ten to fifteen minutes, then divide into two
pieces and roll both into loaves, and then put them in well
buttered pans and keep warm and covered. Let rise until the dough
doubles. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then at 350 degrees
for 30 minutes. Let the bread cool in the bread pans for a few
minutes before removing them to a rack to cool completely.

We make this bread every week without fail. The salt and
malt are optional.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Portrait of Barbara Cheadle.]

ALWAYS-READY BRAN MUFFINS
by Mrs. Barbara Cheadle

Barbara Cheadle is president of the Parents of Blind
Children Division of the National Federation of the Blind. She is
the mother of three active and usually hungry children, so she
knows the value of keeping nutritious food on hand. Muffins are,
of course, not yeast bread; but they are delicious. Barbara says
of this recipe: "These muffins are mixed, stored in the
refrigerator and baked whenever they are wanted. Twenty-five
minutes before serving, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spoon batter
into buttered muffin tins, filling 2/3 full. Bake 20-22 minutes
and serve. You can make two muffins or enough for a large
family."

Method: Combine 1 cup bran and the boiling water, stir and
let steep. In a separate bowl cream sugar and margarine. Beat in
the eggs. Mix together flour, soda, the 2 remaining cups of wheat
bran, and salt. Combine and mix together well the cup of steeped
bran with all other ingredients. Chill in tightly covered plastic
container. Let stand at least 12 hours before baking. Batter will
keep in refrigerator for up to 6 weeks.

CRUNCHY WHEAT BREAD
by Jonathan Ice

Jonathan Ice is an active member of the Metro Chapter of the
National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. He works for a
bakery.

Method: Combine all ingredients, except flour, in a large
bowl. With wooden spoon, stir in enough whole wheat flour so that
dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl
(approximately 7-10 cups). Turn out contents of bowl onto 3 cups
of unbleached white flour. Knead until dough is only slightly
tacky and very elastic. Put in greased bowl and cover with a damp
towel. Let dough rise in a warm place until it about doubles in
volume (about an hour). Punch dough down and divide into six
equal pieces. Shape into round loaves, smooth on top, and let
rise on cookie sheet(s). Bake about thirty minutes in 350-degree
oven. (I prefer round loaves because I find that the bread turns
out moister, but do it in bread pans if you prefer.) Yields six
1-pound loaves.

BASQUE SHEPHERD'S BREAD
by Ronda DelBoccio

Ronda DelBoccio is Director of Community Outreach
for BLIND,
Inc., the NFB's adult rehabilitation center in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, and an active member of the Metro Chapter of the
National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota.

Method: In large bowl, combine water, butter, sugar, and
salt. Stir until butter is melted. Let cool to about 110 degrees.
Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and allow to dissolve.
Beat in about 5 cups flour to make a thick batter. Add enough of
remaining flour to make stiff dough (usually 3 - 3-1/2 cups).
Turn out onto floured board. Knead until texture is satiny and
very elastic (15 to 20 minutes). Work in flour as needed, but
don't overdo it. Place dough in greased bowl. Turn over to grease
top. Let rise until double (about 1 and 1/2 hours). Punch down.
Knead briefly. Make smooth ball. Cut a circle of foil large
enough to cover bottom of 5-quart Dutch oven. Place foil in Dutch
oven. Grease the top surface of the foil and lid of Dutch oven
with oil. Place dough in Dutch oven. Cover and let rise until
dough pushes lid up about 1/2 inch. (Watch closely. It takes
about 1 hour.) Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake
covered with lid for 12 minutes. Remove lid and bake 30 to 35
minutes or until loaf is golden brown. Turn out onto rack, peel
off foil and turn loaf upright. Recipe makes 1 huge loaf. Allow
to cool awhile before cutting. Traditionally, Basque shepherds
made this bread by the campfire in a large kettle. When serving
it, they cut the sign of the cross into it and gave the first
slice to the invaluable dog. This bread freezes well and is
excellent toasted.

MONITOR MINIATURES

**Elected:

The Capitol chapter of the National Federation of the Blind
of Kansas reports the results of their September 7 election as
follows: President, Bill Munck; Vice President, Larry Waymire;
Secretary, Linda Balek; and Treasurer, Susan Ewing. Board members
who were elected are Jim Nottingham, Diane Hennigan, Eric Ewing,
and Tom Balek.

**Better Late Than Never:

From
the Associate Editor: Delighted we were to read the following announcement
in the Fall, 1990 issue of "Insight," the
newsletter of the National Federation of the Blind of South
Dakota:

Delighted Industries is a name of the past. The newly
established name is South Dakota Industries for the Blind. It's
about time.

**A Further Budget Rent-a-Car Update:

From the Associate Editor: The July and October/November,
1990 issues of the Braille Monitor carried stories about Larry
and Sandy Streeter's attempt to rent a car from Budget Rent-a-
Car. It is now clear that Budget got the message. Loraine and
David Stayer, leaders in the NFB of New York, recently obtained
the following notice, which was circulated to all Budget Rent-a-
Car outlets:

Granting Equal Access: How do you treat a person with a
disability? Like a person. Equal access laws have raised
awareness of, and demand for, more service to meet disabled
travelers' needs. In 1987 Budget Rent a Car Corporation made a
recommendation concerning this issue. Many of these travelers
have credit cards but no driver's licenses and travel with
someone who has a driver's license but no credit card. As we move
into our busiest months, please remind your staff of the policy
to waive the prerequisite that the primary renter have a driver's
license. We should accommodate renters over age 25 who are proven
credit-worthy, will accept responsibility for the vehicle, and
are traveling with a licensed driver (e.g., a family member or
other companion).

To show this on the rental agreement,
simply write the word "handicapped" on the line indicating license number, expiration
date, and state and fill in the "additional driver" section of
the agreement. We further recommend that this type of rental not
be subject the additional driver surcharge.

Equal access is a major public policy issue that has
significant public relations impact on all businesses. Let's be
sensitive to the concerns of this influential group of consumers.
For more information please call Jody Wilson at (312) 408-6624.

**From Little Acorns:

Linda and Tom Balek are leaders in the Capitol chapter of
the National Federation of the Blind of Kansas. Their eight-year-
old son Jeff is a member of the chapter and already understands
the meaning of Federationism. This note appeared in the Parent
Corner section of the chapter's October 1, 1990, newsletter:

For many people the civil rights movement of the 1960s is
symbolized by a small, black woman named Rosa Parks, who refused
to sit in the back of a bus. Her act of defiance set the tone for
those who followed and made clear to the world just how foolish
and wrong discrimination is.

Capitol Chapter member Jeff Balek, a third grader at
Berryton Elementary school, has never heard of Rosa Parks. But he
knew something was wrong when his school bus driver made him sit
in the front row while the other (sighted) students were allowed
to sit wherever they wanted.

When Jeff asked his
driver why he couldn't sit in the back with his friends for the 45-minute
rides to and from school, she
announced to him and his peers, "it wouldn't be safe."

Jeff's parents and his principal took up the fight with the
misguided, but steadfast, driver. Local chapter members, alerted
to the situation, stood ready to step in.

Meanwhile, every day for two weeks Jeff repeated his wish to
sit with his friends and was rebuffed. Finally the driver
relented.

Discrimination is just as wrong when applied to the blind as
it was, and is, for southern blacks. Sadly, parents of blind
children must still be vigilant to protect their civil rights.

**New Game Available:

We have been asked to print the following:

"Hi-Lo" is an exceptionally designed dice and domino game,
not only for sighted individuals, but especially for the visually
impaired. The "Hi-Lo" is of high quality, constructed of solid
oak, with walnut dominoes and a green felt playing arena. The ten
dominoes, dotted one through ten, have beautiful raised brass
dots for easier tactile readability. Also enclosed are larger
sized, red transparent dice with white dots, as well as a free
audio cassette with playing and ordering instructions. For low
vision individuals, there are fourteen-point bold print
instructions with a re-order coupon attached and a unique score
pad for all. The "Hi-Lo" is an excellent solitaire or group game
and is portable for your convenience.

We received the following notice from the National
Federation of the Blind of South Dakota's state office:

Marshall
and Karen Mayry were hosts to Akiko Noguchi from Japan during July. Akiko,
a 16-year-old blind student, traveled
to America with the JAJA, Japan American Jamboree Adventure
program. The program is designed to help Japanese students learn
more about Americans and improve their English skills. Akiko, who
lives in Kyoto, was the first blind student to be included in the
JAJA program. Upon learning of her attendance, the program
director contacted the NFB of South Dakota office regarding her
housing. "We were thrilled to have her stay with us, and she was
equally thrilled to stay with a blind adult. It was quite an
experience for all of us. Her English improved greatly;
unfortunately, we did not do as well with our Japanese," said
Mrs. Mayry.

**Elected:

Marilyn Womble, who has been the energetic President of the
National Federation of the Blind of Florida for a number of
years, has recently experienced health problems that have forced
her regretfully to resign from the presidency. She will remain
active in our Florida affiliate by chairing the state's
legislative committee, and she continues, of course, to live her
Federationism and to work hard for the movement every day. Under
date of November 1, Marilyn wrote a letter to members of the
National Federation of the Blind of Florida announcing the
results of the elections conducted at the state convention. Those
serving as officers of the NFB of Florida are President, Wayne
Davis; First Vice President, Joyce Mathis; Second Vice President,
Melody Lindsey; Secretary, Charlotte Christensen; and Treasurer,
Theresa Schaffer. Elected to serve as board members are Dan
Hicks, Jeff Harmon, Janet Caron, and Gloria Mills.

**New Baby:

Mike and Barbara Freeman, who are leaders in the National
Federation of the Blind of Washington, have been attempting to
adopt a blind child for about five years now. All of us who know
and love them have agonized with them through the many trials and
disappointments they have faced. But on Tuesday, November 13, the
Freemans welcomed Shanti Anne into their family. She celebrated
her first birthday with her new parents on November 27, 1990, and
all of us join in wishing her a belated happy birthday and look
forward to meeting her in New Orleans at the 1991 national
convention.

**Braille Mexican Cookbook Available:

We have been asked to print the following:

The National Federation of the Blind of New Mexico has
announced the availability of the cookbook, Selections from
Simply Simpatico. This Braille cookbook contains over 150 recipes
for Mexican and Southwestern foods.

The two-volume soft-cover Braille book is available at a
cost of $15.00. The book is also available on MS-DOS computer
disk as text files for a cost of $10.00. Please specify 3.5- or
5.25-inch disk when ordering.

If you have ever wondered what to do with that pile of chili
peppers your neighbor gave you or how to make tortillas,
enchiladas, sopaipillas, or countless other Mexican and
Southwestern dishes, then this is the cookbook for you.

Selections from Simply Simpatico has been excerpted from a
cookbook called Simply Simpatico originally published in 1980 by
the Junior League of Albuquerque, which has graciously granted
the NFB of New Mexico permission to excerpt from the original
cookbook. The project is a fund raiser for the New Mexico
affiliate.

Selections from Simply Simpatico will serve the needs of the
beginning as well as the experienced cook. It contains a glossary
of terms and food types, which will give you all the background
information you will need to get started. In addition, it also
contains a Basic Preparations section which will give you step-
by-step instructions for handling all necessary ingredients, as
well as recipes for everything from red and green chili to salsa,
and from tacos and enchiladas to chilies rellenos. This book will
answer all the questions you have ever had about Mexican and
Southwestern food but were afraid to ask.

In addition to the glossary and basic preparations sections,
the cookbook also has sections on appetizers, beverages, soups
and sandwiches, breads, salads, accompaniments, eggs and cheese,
rice pasta and grains, vegetables, meats, poultry, and desserts.
Further, the book features short essays on New Mexican food and
history and the Southwestern lifestyle.

All checks and money orders should be made payable to the
NFB of New Mexico. Send all orders to NFB of New Mexico, David
Andrews, 906-1/2 Fruit Ave., N.W., Albuquerque, NM 87102.
If you have any questions or need additional information,
you can call David Andrews at 505-243-5160.

**Computer Instruction:

We have been asked to carry the following announcement:

"Instruction
in Soft-Vert available as well as instruction in Word Perfect. Various
aspects of Soft-Vert covered. Commands in
both communication and review modes, as well as use of the verbal
options menu and dictionary are covered. Instruction in Word
Perfect includes Search, Edit, Print, Merge, Macros, Spellcheck,
as well as other aspects needed for employment or personal use.
Fee: $15/hour, will travel in New York City area. Call or write:
Mr. Jan Koy, 302 Mott Street, New York, New York 10012; (212)
431-8114."

**Elected:

Pauline Murphy of Missouri writes as follows: At our
November meeting of the National Federation of the Blind of St.
Joseph, Missouri, Chapter the following persons were elected:
President, Jerry Maccoux; Vice President, Pauline Murphy;
Secretary, Melba Miller; and Treasurer, Larry Murphy.

**Hospitalized and Back to Work:

In mid-September of 1990 Curtis Willoughby, a long-time
leader of our Iowa affiliate, suffered a minor heart attack. He
was in the hospital one week where doctors found and treated him
for blockage in two small arteries which supply blood to the
heart. Using non-surgical techniques they completely cleared one
artery. Apparently, they determined that the second blockage is
a non-debilitating or threatening problem and released Curtis
without further medical treatment but did outline an exercise and
diet regimen for him to follow. As of early October, Curtis is
back to work.

**American Foundation Seeks Director:

We have been asked to carry the following announcement:

"American Foundation for the Blind seeks President/Executive
Director. Advanced degree and successful experience in education
or rehabilitation of persons with visual impairment. Broad
knowledge and understanding of the present and future direction
for delivery of quality services. Demonstrated leadership
abilities in present and previous positions and in professional
organization and ability to monitor the budgetary process of a
large national organization. Skilled in oral and written
communication with a variety of audiences. Position open until
appropriate candidate is identified. Send letter of intent and
resume to Mr. Michael M. Maney, Sullivan & Cromwell, 125 Broad
Street, New York, New York 10004. AFB is an affirmative
action/equal opportunity employer."

Cheryl McCaslin, long-time member and sparkplug of the
Cultural Exchange and International Program Committee of the
National Federation of the Blind, writes as follows:

The C.E.I.P Committee is going to have a new fundraising
project. We are planning to make an International Dining
Cookbook. We will sell it in both Braille and print so it will be
for everyone. Each of you can help us with this exciting project
by sending in your favorite foreign recipes. Be sure, however,
that the ingredients of each recipe can be obtained in the United
States, so we do not have to do foreign traveling in order to
cook that recipe. If you have any recipes to submit to this
cookbook, please send them to: Joyce Scanlan, NFB of Minnesota,
Suite 715 Chamber of Commerce Building, 15 South 5th Street,
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402. We will be looking forward to
hearing from each of you with those delicious foreign recipes.

**A Word of Thanks:

From the Editor: As you can imagine, we get all kinds of
requests to carry this or that in the Monitor. Some of the items
are appropriate; others not. Sometimes the sheer volume of
material causes something to be eliminated. On the other hand,
there are requests which seem particularly fitting. Here is one
of them, just as we received it. After all, the Federation is,
first and foremost, a family:

"To the Editor:

"I am
writing you this brief letter to just give my thanks to my fellow brothers
and sisters from the New York State chapter
meeting that was held in Rochester, NY, from Friday the 19th day
of October to Sunday the 21st day of October, 1990. Here is my
story. On Saturday night during the banquet dinner I felt sick
and went to check my blood/sugar since I am a diabetic. Well, the
reading that I got was 28, which was low, so I took all the
necessary measures to bring it up. Well, it went up to about 80,
but I still felt sick; so the good folks at the Rochester Ramada
Inn where the convention took place phoned the hospital, and I
was sent there by ambulance. My blood/sugar at this time was 130,
but it was not that which was causing my problems. It was my
heart. Well, everything turned out right, and I was given more
medication. Here is where the story takes its climax. The fellow
members of our wonderful group, Dr. Donna E. West, Jodi
Constanine, Charles Hamburger, Roxanne Simms, and the others
(including the great hotel staff), I wish to thank them once
again for their love and care by not only taking care of me but
my guide dog Gabby.

"Once again, thanks from
the bottom of my heart.

"Sheldon M. Werner, C.P.A., B.C.L."

**Braille Newspaper:

We recently received the following news release:

World's First Braille Newspaper Debuts in Hong Kong

In a major advancement in disseminating "hard news" to
the
visually impaired, the world's first Braille daily newspaper is
now being published in Hong Kong.

Since August 20, up to 70 copies of the English-language
paper, officially known as The Braille Post, are printed each
work day and are reaching nearly 500 people.

The Braille Post is the brainchild of Bob Howarth, Editorial
Technology and Training Manager for the South China Morning Post,
Hong Kong's main English-language daily newspaper, and Fred Leun,
Supervisor of the Hong Kong Society for the Blind's Centralized
Braille Production Center.

**Ann Morris Enterprises:

We have
been asked to carry the following announcement: "Inexpensive talking
calculators with headphone jacks, televisions which receive descriptive video,
tactile meat and
candy thermometers, Braille cookbooks and craft books, jute
wheelbags, and a refillable large print address book are just
some of the products in Volume 5 of the Ann Morris Enterprises,
Inc. catalog. Write or call today for your free large print or
cassette edition or send $8.00 for a Braille copy. Discover,
MasterCard, Visa, and COD accepted. Address all correspondence
to: Ann Morris Enterprises, Inc., 26 Horseshoe Lane, Levittown,
New York 11756; phone: (516) 796-4938."

**Recovering at Home:

As reported elsewhere in this issue, Steve Benson, President
of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois and a member
of the NFB Board of Directors, was suddenly hospitalized on
Saturday, December 1, 1990. After several days of tests, he
underwent surgery on Friday, December 7, to repair his bladder
wall and prevent a repetition of the infection he had been
fighting. We are delighted to report that Steve was discharged
from the hospital on December 19 and is now recovering at home
with his family. We all wish him a speedy and uneventful return
to health.

**O.K. With Mary Kay:

We have been asked to carry the following announcement:

Would you like something fun to do during those times at the
Washington Seminar when you have no appointments and Mercury has
none to be assigned? You are invited to stop by and visit the
Mary Kay display in Marie Cobb's room. You can browse through the
exciting Valentine's Day gifts, treat yourself to a free facial,
or why not do both? If you find items you wish to purchase, we do
free gift wrapping, and we also accept MasterCard and Visa.
WHERE: Marie Cobb's room, Holiday Inn. WHEN: Saturday, February
2, 1991, at Noon, through Wednesday, February 6 (except during
the main briefings and group meetings). Incidentally, part of the
proceeds will be donated to the Federation.

**Rolling Stone:

We have been asked to carry the following announcement:

"Triformation
Braille Services, Inc., 3142 S. E. Jay Street, Stuart, Florida 34997,
has entered into an agreement with Rolling
Stone magazine to produce their magazine in Braille. If you are
interested in subscribing to this bi-weekly publication, please
call TBS at (407) 286-8366. A subscription list is being made up
at this time, and the first issue is anticipated for the first of
the year.

**Transcribers and Educators Convention:

Bill Gerrey, a member of the National Federation of the
Blind of California, has asked us to print the following:

California
Transcribers and Educators of the Visually Handicapped (CTEVH) is meeting
from March 14 to 16, 1991, in
Oakland. This 32nd Conference, titled "Consumers Are the
Reason," will be, as usual, the major coming together of VH
professionals in the country. There will be wide-ranging
workshops for teachers, consumers, and transcribers as well as
more than 50 exhibits.

Steve Benson, president of the National Federation of the
Blind of Illinois, reports as follows:

Nearly 140 Federationists and friends from across Illinois
and five other states gathered at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in
Lisle, Illinois, Friday, September 28 to Sunday, September 30,
for the 1990 convention of the NFB of Illinois. Rami Rabby,
prize-winning author and management consultant in addition to
being the president of the NFB of New York City, presided over an
outstanding Job Opportunities for the Blind seminar Friday
afternoon. The remainder of the convention sustained the quality
and pace set by the JOB seminar.

At the Saturday evening banquet Joyce Scanlan, secretary of
the National Federation of the Blind and president of the NFB of
Minnesota, delivered a stirring and thought-provoking address.
Tony Burda was presented with the Gwendolyn Williams Award for
his exemplary work in and on behalf of the Federation.

From the Editor:
With increasing frequency we are getting requests to carry announcements
in the Monitor which may be
thoroughly constructive but which are worded in such a way that
they don't get carried. Such an announcement might, for instance,
say something like this: "Wonderful business opportunity! Work in
your own home, and make good income!"

If we get a request to carry such an announcement and if we
don't know the person who has asked us to carry it, our tendency
is not to do it. It may be perfectly legitimate, or it may be a
rip-off. The difficulty is in knowing how to tell. It is true
that our carrying an announcement does not constitute an
endorsement, but whether it does or not, we feel some
responsibility.

Therefore, if you want us to carry an announcement regarding
business opportunities or products, it will be to your advantage
if you give us references or enough information to help us
determine what it is we are being asked to promote and who is
asking us to do it. As Monitor readers know, we make no charge
for carrying announcements. What we are trying to do is to
provide a service.